Shattered Glass
by throwaawy
Summary: In his years as a cape, Looking Glass has made friends and enemies; people that have helped him and hindered him. But after all this time, he's about to learn that some of the worst threats aren't to be found from external forces, but from those closest to him—follows "Looking Glass"—COMPLETE
1. Prologue (Jamie)

_**disclaimer—**__this fic is based off of "Worm", an original web serial 'fic by 'wildbow' and found at __**(parahumans. wordpress. com) **__all intellectual rights to the parahumans 'verse and the characters belong to wildbow._

_this is a sequel/continuation of the one-shot "Looking Glass", i strongly recommend you read that first_

...

* * *

She could not describe just what it was that made her realise that she was no longer alone. There were no changes in what she heard, no changes in what she could see—just an almost imperceptible alteration in what she could _feel._

"...Hello?" she called out timidly. At least she _thought_ she'd called out. But she couldn't hear the words coming out of her mouth, nor could she tell if her mouth was even moving.

Likewise, there was no answer—at least nothing she could hear. But, somehow, she could feel the other presence shifting in response.

She tried again. "Hello? Can you hear me?" Then, as a thought—a _hope—_kindled inside of her, "...Mama?"

She felt it again, that _shift_ of whatever she was sensing. She felt the precise moment the other presence focused its attention upon her and she tensed in anticipation as she heard—well, not _heard,_ but she perceived—a response.

_"Hello?"_ If she could have, she would have slumped in disappointment. It was just her own voice echoing back to her.

_"Who are you?"_ the voice continued.

She metaphorically blinked. She hadn't asked that. Maybe that _wasn't_ just an echo. She tried again. "Who are _you?_"

_"I asked you first!"_ Wow, is _that_ what she sounded like when she was about to have a tantrum?

She frowned. "No you didn't, _I_ did!"

_"Are you a space jellyfish?"_

"A what?"

_"What?"_

She grew annoyed at the voice. "_You're_ the one who just asked me... about... "

About... something...

...What was she mad about again?

There was a moment of silence as she tried to settle her thoughts. Or a few minutes... or forever. It was hard to tell.

_"...I—I think I'm lost,"_ the voice continued. _"Can you help me find my Mummy?"_

It was weird, how this voice sounded just like her. But it _wasn't_ her—it couldn't be her because she was right _here!_ It was clearly just a stranger trying to copy her. Hmm... Well, Mama had always told her what to do if she ran into strangers. Tell them nothing but your name and ask them for the—

_"... or can you take me to the Lost and Found?"_

What? How did the echo know?

"I'm lost too," she admitted. If she was lost... and the stranger-echo was also lost—well, Mama had also said she should be polite to people she'd just met... especially if they were in need. "My name is Jamie, what's yours?"

_"Mine's James! Hey that's funny, your name's almost like mine!"_

...

* * *

.

**Shattered Glass**

_A Parahumans fanfic by throwaawy_

_._

**Prologue (Jamie)**

.

* * *

Jamie was a quick study when it came to her new body. Sure, it was weird having to float everywhere instead of being able to walk around like she'd grown used to, but it also provided loads of opportunities. Getting used to her new 'older brother' was a bit more confusing, but the oddest adjustment had been dealing with her Mama-who-wasn't-really-her-Mama. She couldn't give her hugs, for one thing. She couldn't give anyone hugs.

In fact, not being able to touch _anything_ was a bore, to be honest. She wished it were just a stupid rule Big Brother had imposed over her, but even she could see that nothing really happened when she tried. She couldn't even turn the pages to the funny papers so she could read them. She had to wait for James... or find new ways to amuse herself.

"Jamie! Get OUT!"

She flew through the wall whilst covering her eyes with her hands, although the fact that they were more or less see-through lessened the act somewhat. She skidded in mid-air as she shed momentum and angled back towards the common room, narrowly avoiding a wet towel as James threw it into the wall behind her.

His irate voice follow her down the hallway. "I've told you time and again! Bathrooms are off limits! Go watch the telly or something!"

Despite the very real anger that was being directed at her, Jamie couldn't help but let a silly grin grow on her face as she dutifully parked herself back in front of the morning cartoons.

She retreated back into the privacy of her own thoughts, her mind only barely paying attention to the show currently playing as she cast her senses out. From the sounds of running water, she knew Big Brother had returned to his shower; and from the smells wafting up from downstairs, she knew Mama and Papa were cooking breakfast.

Her smile dimmed. She missed _her_ Mama. She wondered if her Mama missed her back...

...

* * *

The white-hooded cape barely turned her head as the electric-blue spectre descended towards her position. "J," she greeted her. "What is the situation?"

Jamie crossed her arms. "Aww, I don't like that name, try again."

"We are broadcasting on a lightly-encrypted channel," Flurry replied flatly, raising a hand to her hood to indicate the microphone nestled there, just out of sight. "Code names are required protocol in case the enemy is tapping our communications."

Jamie blinked. Several times. "We're at a picnic," she finally said. "A _children's_ picnic."

"We have been tasked by our employers to supervise a scheduled public function that includes a large amount of... _young civilians,_" the older girl clarified. "Security is of the utmost importance and we should not slack in our vigilance."

_"Oh for crying out—"_ the transceiver crackled to life as Volley cut into the channel. _"Boss, Glass just wants to know if you wanted a hotdog or something. He's over by the food tables."_

Jamie nodded. "What he said."

Flurry remained still for several moments, her expression impossible to read behind her featureless, white mask. Finally her shoulders slumped slightly and she thumbed off the transmitter. "I would prefer a polish sausage," she whispered to the girl floating beside her.

_"Polish, got it,"_ James replied over the comm, even as Jamie grinned.

Flurry stiffened. She keyed her microphone back on, "I—"

_"Huh, you surprise me, Boss-lady," _Wu Lung chimed in, _"I would have expected you to go for the ice cream. Hey Glass, make mine a cheeseburger."_

Even without being able to see her face, Jamie could hear Flurry clicking her teeth in annoyance as she turned away. The stoic cape said nothing in reply, resolutely focusing her eyes on the perimeter even as she was mobbed by preteens trying to grab her attention.

Jamie decided to take pity on her. "So!" she said, glancing at the small crowd below her. "Who wants to play tag?"

...

* * *

It was a mess. A complete mess. Although it wasn't like the landscape had been picturesque in the first place, with nothing around to see but rocks and ice. Except now the rock formations had been shattered by the extreme forces being thrown around willy-nilly and the ice was on fire.

It bore repeating: _the ice was on fire_. Thick clouds of volcanic fog hung over the sky, creating a gloomy atmosphere on an already dismal day.

From her position halfway up the summit of Eyjafjallajökull, Jamie could see the other capes fighting for their very lives against a gigantic monstrosity. She saw one go down, screaming as he or she stepped in too closely and spontaneously combusted—burned from the inside-out by Behemoth's kill aura.

She glanced once more at the rocks below her, staring down at the battered body lying there.

_It looks worse than it feels,_ James assured her through their link. He was too injured to speak normally. Pain continuously lanced through him as a result of the rocks pressed against him. If it weren't for the fact that she _knew_ his injuries were survivable, she'd probably be panicking.

Not that she wasn't, regardless. Not that she'd let him know either, if she had anything to do about it.

She kept a neutral expression on her face as she floated towards the ground, looking into his eyes. "Was I helpful?" she asked him. She needed to know that she hadn't been useless. That she—his 'power'—hadn't gotten him involved into a hopeless fight. That she hadn't brought him to this forsaken ice cap for the sole purpose of having a rockslide nearly crush him.

He tried to reassure her with a smile, but it looked more like a grimace on his bruised face. _You got some good intel on his movements at least. We saved a lot of lives today._

Jamie said nothing in reply. She knew at least one group of capes had benefited from the advance warning of the Endbringer's movements, managing to escape to safety before it trampled through their former position. It had been a temporary reprieve, however. The Endbringer's lightning strikes didn't seem concerned with positioning or barriers when seeking out their targets.

James winced as a rumble surged through the ground, shifting the rocks pressing down on him. Jamie glanced up and saw one of the American capes flying away, clawing for distance after having tried to plant Behemoth's head into the rocky surface. The one-eyed monstrosity had simply absorbed the strike and channeled it harmlessly away from itself.

Harmless to itself, at least. She saw several capes in close proximity to the monster falling to the ground in its path with the force of the tremors. Most managed to regain their footing and fled before its advance. Others didn't and burned.

_The others?_

She bit her lip, but the question had brought the memories of what she'd seen to the forefront. Thoughts too fresh and strong for her to keep from their link.

Flurry and a formation of other capes attempting to form a barrier against one of his energy strikes and failing. Volley plummeting several hundred metres as the rocky outcropping where he'd set up his equipment had been torn free from the mountain supporting it. Wu Lung pitting his Dancing Dragon against the Endbringer directly... with less than spectacular results.

_Bloody hell..._

She saw James' eyes squeeze shut in pain, both physical and emotional as he read her train of thought. "Don't sleep," she reminded him. "The first-aid handbook said you have to remain conscious until help arrives."

_I know..._ he groaned. His body shifted and he winced. _It's just so... uncomfortable._

She heard a crack in the air and spun in place to see a cape dressed in light blue colours materialising less than a metre away, responding to the emergency beacon built into James' wristband. "Over here!" she called out to him. She felt James responding to her sudden relief, then felt her own horror as he relaxed and started to slip away...

"We're over he—"

...

* * *

Darkness. Always Darkness.

"James?" Her voice seemed to echo, as if she were in the middle of a wide-open room with nothing around her but distant walls. It reminded her too much of the time she'd spent alone, long before the day he'd responded to her so many years ago.

_I'm here._ His mental voice was insubstantial, a sort of quality that made him sound unearthly, unnatural. It was a sharp contrast to whenever he talked to her in person. It resonated within her head, carrying with it all the various tones and feelings with which he spoke. It was something she could not shy away from, could not ignore.

She relaxed. That voice kept her from becoming too anxious, from feeling too alone.

She always felt _heavier_ here. That twinge that occurred whenever she flew through a wall was present, but it was sustained—the feeling didn't go away. His presence, especially in the absence of all other sensory input, was a welcome escape from this void. But there was always Darkness... unless she...

"Where are we, James?" she called out.

He didn't respond. At least not in words. His presence suddenly dimmed, as if he'd moved a great distance away. Which was odd, since no matter how far she was from him, he was always _right there_. Muted feelings poured out from him and she was forced to concentrate in order to try and pick them up.

Fear, anxiety, determination. She'd felt those plenty of times whenever they went out with the group. Flurry had once explained to her that it was normal for any person—cape or otherwise—to feel such things whenever they put themselves in harms way.

Regret, though, was something more undefined. She could put a label to it, because that's how James himself seemed to categorise it. He usually seemed to feel it when he was with his parents, though. Or more recently, whenever his thoughts dwelled on the Endbringer attack. And she also felt it from him whenever the Darkness came.

_Especially_ whenever the Darkness came. And sometimes, when he got _really_ quiet like this—so completely lost in his thoughts...

_There!_ She caught a flash of _something_ and zeroed in on it. As if it were a light at the end of a tunnel, she fled the Darkness as quickly as she could and used their link to tap into James' own perceptions. Opportunities like this didn't come very often and she revelled in the return to awareness. Even if she was still unable to move, she was now able to _see_. It almost made her giddy with relief.

That feeling quickly died down, however, once she saw _what _James was focused on. The white, sterile room. The machinery and equipment lining the walls and the bed. The girl tucked into the bed, fast asleep.

Her.

She wasn't stupid. She might not have had the life experiences a girl her age normally would, but if there was anything she shared with her 'older brother', it was that same inquisitiveness and ability to make connections that had made him such a good student. Even if her perceptions in this darkness were limited to what he allowed her, she was fully capable of reading between the lines.

And James was such an open book to her. He wasn't able to hide anything from her if she put her mind to it. Perhaps it was a result of her becoming aware of the Darkness an indeterminate amount of time before he did, or because it had become her job to look for the things he didn't notice first—she wasn't sure. Looking at herself through his eyes was _easy_ once he let his guard down. Conversely, she had no problems keeping her own thoughts a secret from him if she really wanted to.

It would have been so easy to be angry with him for trying to keep her in the dark, so to speak. But seeing what he saw, the extreme guilt and self-loathing he was feeling, as if he had anything to do with her condition... well at least his heart was in the right place. She couldn't begrudge him that.

Besides, right now he was her entire world. He was all she had. In all of the nights that she'd spent here, she had never once seen her parents in the chair set to the side for visitors. There had been a nurse or two on rare occasions, seeking a quiet place to rest, but never her Mama. James had been her only constant for the majority of her life now.

"Silly James," she said. Her vision was cut off as James abruptly refocused himself, her connection to him reverting down to its usual level as he sorted his thoughts. "It's not your fault."

_What are you talking about?_ Even as closed off as he tried to make himself, there was no mistaking the quiet horror and suspicion currently running through him.

As she had so many times before, she decided to take pity on him. He didn't deserve the blame he was putting himself through. "Your team," she said, sidestepping the issue. "The Endbringer. There was nothing you could have done."

His relief was palpable, so infectious. If she'd had a body to express herself with in this plane, her smile would have been bittersweet as she successfully redirected him.

Unseen by either of them, the bedridden girl's mouth twitched.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**_—_so i got some pretty good responses to my first venture into the wormverse, so i thought i'd try again. i've planned a rough outline while i was still in classes and now that it's summer i figured i'd give it a go. but the devil is in the details, and i've never quiiite been confident in my flair for drama (i like to think i can write a mean crackfic, however)... so we'll see how this goes._

_feel free to review! it lets me know where i'm failing._


	2. Transparency 1-01

**Transparency 1.01**

* * *

"_We have no secrets from each other, though sometimes I wish some things were more hidden. What's more transparent than invisible?" —Jarod Kintz_

* * *

This was not how I expected my day to go.

It was fairly nice weather today. The temperature was a cool fifteen degrees, the sun was actually out for once, and there was almost no wind either. It was the perfect type of weather for relaxing, maybe to have a picnic or something. Or a trip to the grocer's.

Instead I found myself at the edge of a street brawl. There were several things wrong with this. For one thing, it was at a fairly nice café patio in the middle of the day; there was no chance that it could be excused as a simple conflict that had spilled out from a nearby pub. The second thing was that it was a very lopsided fight—one bloke versus at least four others. Finally—and it bears repeating—I had planned on going _shopping_. Getting into a fight today had been the _last_ thing on my mind.

But, unfortunately for me, helping others is the exact sort of thing I'm supposed to be doing. See, I'm a parahuman, a person with powers and abilities. What's more, I'm a hero—aiding the unfortunate and downtrodden is part of the job description. I'm pretty sure it's there, my partner would probably have been able to point to the specific section and paragraph where the terms were outlined in my contract.

The only problem is that my powers don't translate very well for a direct combat situation like this. After over a decade on the 'cape' scene, I consider myself to be far from helpless, but front-line brawler I am not. During those years I generally performed the task of overwatch for my group and a direct confrontation is not something I would prefer to get into. Unfortunately for myself, recent events had forced me to take on a more active role.

It had been Jamie—J when we were working—who had first spotted the disturbance. As a fifty-centimetre tall spectre capable of flying anywhere she wished within a five-kilometre radius from my position, I used her extensively during my patrols whilst in costume, a habit I continued to a slightly lesser degree even off-duty.

She was an extension of my powers given ethereal form, effectively allowing me to be two places at once. She could communicate with people at her end and any thoughts the two of us had could be shared over a sort of psychic link. Whatever she saw, heard, or even deduced, I would know it instantly.

Such as the fact that the group of four attackers were all the exact same person.

_Exactly _the same person. Identical builds, identical clothing, and identical expressions—furious. They even fought in the same manner. They all appeared to be fairly young, I would have pegged them at around twelve or thirteen years old. They did their best to run up to the defender and throw a straight punch into his face. No tricks, no feints, just a straightforward attack. More often than not they would trip each other up in their rush to reach him, and their victim was able to defend himself quite well once he'd realised they weren't trying anything clever.

But even as he fought back and dropped his attackers, I noticed them returning to their feet none the worse for wear. In fact, as I watched, _more_ of them were getting back up. I didn't see any lethal blows being thrown intentionally, but occasionally one of the attackers would wander into the path of his twin's attack, or another would trip and smash his head into a table corner at a really _bad_ angle.

Each time I was afraid that the fight had turned deadly and that one person had been killed, accidentally or otherwise, two more guys stood up in his place. This was not hyperbole. I followed one individual as he rushed forward with a raised fist. He earned himself a desperate blow to the jaw that spun his head around with a sharp crack that made me think _whiplash_ and he dropped to the street like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

He stood up. Then he stood up _again_. Two of him each getting their bearings, reorienting themselves to find their target, and charging back into the fray. The same mindless determination to reach their victim, same uninspired, straightforward assault. Their target had no choice but to fall back before the relentless waves. Where at first there had been a mere four attackers, there were now almost double that number pressing down on him by the time I'd arrived at the scene.

I began shoving my way through the mob to reach him, analysing the group. They were clearly the result of a parahuman ability of some kind, but I'd never heard of a duplicator with this sort of power before. The clones were simple-minded beings. They pushed and shoved as I made my way past them, but they weren't attempting to fight against me as much as they were trying to reach their original target.

They were in street clothing, which meant this was most likely not an established cape. It could have been a rogue or a villain working plainclothes, but my mind seemed to latch onto another possibility—that someone in the city had just had their trigger event. The way the clones were doing their level best to inflict a beat down on their target made me suspicious as to the reason behind it, but without knowing if there were other victims elsewhere in the city I couldn't be certain. Since I didn't see _any_ of the clones acting in a rational manner, I had to assume their progenitor was elsewhere. Making more clones somehow in the worst case.

I now had two tasks to complete. First, I had to keep this completely random, innocent bystander—yeah, I couldn't keep my face straight even _thinking_ that—from harm's way. Secondly, I needed to track down the original parahuman that was releasing the clones.

Fortunately as I mentioned before, my power allows me to multitask quite well.

_Jamie,_ I sent my train of thought down the link I shared with her. _You know what to do?_

_Got it,_ she sent back to me. _See if there are any other clones, try to track them all back to their source. Back in a flash, Big Brother~_

Jamie had been hovering several stories above the café before I sent her off. When I had first discovered my ability, her tethered range had been just under a kilometre from my current position. The years had seen that range slowly expanding, with the largest increase happening just a few months ago. The thought that she wouldn't succeed in finding _some_ trace of our mysterious parahuman had never crossed my mind.

As for my original problem...

This would be a bit tricky. Unfortunately my power did _not_ see fit to endow me with superhuman, or even above-average strength or toughness. I did have a few years of self-defense classes under my belt, but kung-fu master I was not. I had a standard, police-issue nightstick strapped to my side, which would most likely be useless against a group that large. In short, I had nothing that would help me if the clones suddenly decided to treat me as an enemy.

It was times like these that I really wished I had put more effort into being a front-line combatant back when I was part of a team.

By the time I reached the boy—a young teen not much older than his attackers—he had been forced to retreat underneath a table. He was kicking out against a clone that was prone against the ground, mindlessly reaching for him. As for the others—the rest of the clones were either tripping over the fallen one or banging their arms against the surface of the table. The table itself was a mesh of wrought iron, so his panicked expression was clearly visible to his attackers.

"Hey!" he shouted, having noticed me pushing my way there through the clones. "You! Dumbass! You're a hero, right? _Help me!_"

I nearly stopped in disbelief at his behavior, _almost_ regretting that I had gotten involved. _Oh the things I do for the Greater Good,_ I mused to myself. One of the clones behind me shoved me roughly to the side to join his counterparts in attacking the table, creating an ear-hurting cacophony of sounds as they continued banging on the metal with their fists. The teen was more or less trapped there as they surrounded the table... but none of them seemed to have the presence of mind to _crouch_.

On the plus side, they seemed to have stopped multiplying since he'd stopped fighting back.

A stray thought made me shake my head. _No... no way. There's no way the answer could be this simple._ The clones were clearly simple-minded. More than simple-minded, they were _stupid_. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. The mystery parahuman's power could be something like the ability to create a clone and issue it a command, a single directive. Such as '_find and beat up person A.'_

They would go out, find their target, and immediately engage him or her, all whilst taking _the most direct path they could see_. They could _see_ the teen through the patio table, so it'd never occurred to them that it was an obstacle they should be moving out of their way.

I was less sure about the duplication abilities the individual clones had, but from what I saw earlier it might have had to do with the amount of damage they took. Hurt a clone enough and it would split into two, for example. The threshold must have been fairly high at least, or else there would have been a _lot_ more of them.

So, I had an idea—a _stupid_ idea—but one that might buy him some time at least. Part of my costume included a scarf to hide my nose and mouth. I grabbed one of the clones by the shoulder and heaved it away from the table—not _quite_ as easy as it sounded, but they were distracted enough that I could manage—and moved into the gap it had left, dropping into a crouch as I unwound my scarf and held it out to the teen.

"Cover as much of your head as you can with this," I told him. He gave me a look that let me know he thought I was nuts, but he accepted the scarf and dutifully wrapped it around his head several times, leaving just his nose and eyes uncovered.

The effect was nearly instantaneous. The gathered clones immediately stopped their assault on the table and simply stood there, turning their heads this way and that as if searching for their missing target. They were completely oblivious to the fact that they had seen him not moments ago, unable to process the change in his appearance. I idly wondered what criteria the original had used to identify their target for them.

The teen slowly emerged from his hiding spot, brushing aside my proffered hand. He was wide-eyed as he stared at the identical figures surrounding us, disbelief evident in his posture.

"Yeah," I drawled. "I didn't really think this would work... I think I'm almost disappointed."

He didn't seem to share my humor. His eyes narrowed as he turned towards the closest clone and buried his fist into its gut. "Fucker!" he screamed. "Think you're all high and mighty now that you've got powers?! You think you're hot stuff, but you're still a _dumb_ little piece of shit!" The clone he'd attacked didn't react other than to turn its head so that his wasn't blocking its view and continue looking around the cafe.

_Completely random, _innocent_ bystander,_ I repeated my thoughts from earlier. I sighed and shook my head. I put him out of my head—even as he continued to scream and vent himself on the clone—as I mentally searched for Jamie. She was only several hundred metres south of my position, moving back and forth across the streets in a search pattern. _Find anything?_

_No clones,_ she reported back. _But wherever they came from, they left a trail of destruction in their wake. Mostly a bunch of angry street vendors with knocked over stalls. I'm guessing Mr. Boy Scout over there ran into your group around where I am now and started running. They followed in as straight a line as they could manage. There are a few cars stopped on the streets too. They might have been the reason for the first few duplications.  
_

I glanced back at the absurd sight of a masked and angry teenager using another apparent teen as a punching bag. He had issues. _Judging how the clones are acting without their target in sight, I'm guessing they didn't originate very far from where you are now. Their progenitor might have moved on though._

_So I might want to look for a familiar face? Or three?_ She was already rising above the skyline to get a better view. _Way ahead of ya._

I sighed and prepared myself to take the teen into custody—protective custody, of course. He was, after all, the victim of an assault using a parahuman ability, a very serious event. The authorities would want to make absolutely sure that he suffered no long-lasting effects. A psychiatric evaluation wouldn't be a bad idea.

As I turned my attention back to him, however, I noticed that he'd knocked the clone over onto its back and was trying to punch its face in. I shuddered.

"That'll teach you to mess with me!" he growled, completely forgetting there was an authority figure near him. Somehow I doubted that had ever stopped him before in the past. "_Nobody_ messed with Billy Williams!"

It was mostly in my head, but I could have sworn that when all eight of the clones snapped their heads towards the teen, their combined focus was like an audible _click._ There was a brief moment of dawning comprehension in poor Billy's eyes before the one he'd been straddling blurred and suddenly two clones rose to their feet beside him, the others moving in from where they had wandered off.

I knew I should have helped, I really did. But my first reaction was to drop my head into one hand as they dogpiled the shrieking teenager.

There was a few moments of confusion and flailing limbs, moments where I seriously considered if I wanted to wait the clones out and retrieve my scarf from the remains afterwards. The decision was taken from me, however, when a clump of snow the size of an exercise ball slammed into the renewed melee. It scattered on impact, spilling across the ground, but it succeeded in knocking away the pile of clones from Billy. As it spread, the snow pressed down on the fallen bodies, pinning all of the clones to the floor, rendering them unable to move.

"Your hesitation may have nearly cost that boy his life," a female voice chided me as a cloud of white particles flew past me from behind. The motion almost, but didn't quite hide the white-hooded cape stepping forward to stand next to me. "I think I'm almost disappointed, Looking Glass."

"Mitigating circumstances?" I shrugged and walked over to where Billy had fallen. He'd fallen unconscious, probably from being smothered, but he didn't seem to be in immediate danger. He did look a bit worse for wear, but he was relatively undamaged. Apparently with that many clones on top of him, the ones closest to him didn't even have the leverage to hit him back. I retrieved my scarf, checked it for dirt or blood and found none, then rewrapped it around my neck as I turned to face the newcomer. "And I know for a fact, Flurry, that you had eyes-on for the last few minutes or so. I could feel the temperature drop. What took _you_ so long to jump in?"

My former team leader's mask hid her face completely, but her posture shifted slightly and she turned her head, avoiding my gaze. "I was merely trying to ascertain the full situation," she said. "Attempting to find the most effective moment to step it."

"Uh huh..." I narrowed my eyes. "And it had nothing to do with making a dramatic entrance...?" Though my tone had started with joking-familiarity, it had trailed off as my brain caught up to what I was saying.

She was quiet for several long moments and I mentally berated myself. Although it had long been a running joke between the members of our team, the person who had first commented on Flurry's habit had been Wu Lung. It was a bitter reminder. "Your clones are melting," she finally said.

"I—what?" I glanced over to see what she was referring to. Sure enough, all dozen or so clones were dissolving into thin air. I grinned. "J must have found the source and managed to calm him down." I reached out for her, "Let me just get her position—"

—and I found nothing.

Flurry picked up on my sudden unease even as she worked on vanishing the snow around the cafe. "What is it?"

I turned and headed south at a dead run.

"Ja—Glass! Wait!" I heard Flurry shout. I knew her first impulse would be to follow me, to back me up, but her sense of duty would eventually win over and she would move to secure the victim first. Getting his and the café owner's details for the inevitable paperwork to follow once she contacted the authorities.

At any other time I would have felt guilty about leaving her to that boring task, but that guilt had been superseded by the unthinkable. I couldn't feel Jamie _at all._

It took me several minutes to reach her last known location, a distance Jamie could have covered in just a few seconds. The fact that I hadn't even _noticed_ her vanishing was extremely troubling. Had the mysterious parahuman countered her somehow? Was she dead? Was she _alive?_ Had I suddenly lost my powers completely? Various possibilities came to mind, each of them as unlikely as the last.

I turned onto a street littered with debris. Food and trinkets spread all across the ground as vendors set to work gathering their scattered wares and righting their overturned carts. I pulled out a small beacon from a pouch in midstride, activating it and tossing it to one of the owners as I ran past. "Hold on to that!" I shouted. "The authorities will come to take your statements within the hour!"

I ran on.

When I arrived at my destination, a dingy alleyway off a side street, I found a single person standing there, leaning with his back against the wall as if waiting for me. I knew his face, even if I didn't know him personally. The parahuman. The clonemaster.

"What have you done to her?" I demanded. My breathing was harsh, lending my voice a sort of guttural quality. I didn't know if I was furious or frightened more. It had never even occurred to me to be more cautious in the face of a known duplicator. If he sicced his clones on me I'd be done for. None of that mattered. He'd taken Jamie away from me somehow.

I had stepped closer and found my nightstick in my hand without realising it. "Where. Is. She?" I growled. The clonemaster hadn't been facing me when I entered the alley. Even as I approached, he didn't turn around. A part of me found something wrong with this, but another part of me noted the very open target he was presenting.

I flipped the nightstick around in my hand so the longer end was extended out and tapped him on the shoulder. "Final warning," I said. _"Where is Jamie?"_

The clonemaster shifted and I drew my hand back, ready to club him in the head. But he just turned his head to look over his shoulder, his eyes wide and trembling with strain. It was enough to make me pause.

"J—James?" he croaked.

I froze completely. My mind went blank.

The clonemaster's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed. As he dropped, Jamie floated in place where his head had been, turned towards me the same way he had been. Even as my mouth flapped wordlessly, her eyes closed and her body dimmed, the electric blue barely visible now as she froze in place.

There was a clattering sound as my nightstick dropped to the pavement.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**__—this chapter went up a bit fast because i mostly had this written before i'd __even _started the prologue. don't expect updates every day ^^;;

_plot happens!_


	3. Transparency 1-02

**Transparency 1.02**

* * *

"Thomas Dalton. Fourteen years old. No prior criminal records. No incident reports from his school."

I was slouching against the table as Flurry entered the room, my head resting between my arms. She was reading from a folder she held in one hand. We were back at the local police station in a small conference room they had set aside for cape use, which mostly meant they weren't supposed to be using the cameras they had situated inside. Or if they did, they were at least honour-bound to not reveal anything that went on inside.

"The duplicator," Flurry explained. She closed the door, double-checked the lock, and then removed her hood and mask. Her shaggy brown hair was slightly mussed from having been covered and her eyes were half-lidded, giving her face a perpetually tired expression. "As the offended party," she continued, reading from the report, "William 'Billy' Williams described Dalton as a 'misguided individual, lacking in social standing and a history of perjury against his peers'." She arched an eyebrow. "Or at least, that is what the officer who debriefed him transcribed—using the most neutral words imaginable, I would assume."

I made a noncommittal grunt in answer. She paused, as if she'd expected a witty comment instead, and flipped to the next sheet in the report.

"The street vendors have all pressed charges, of course." She retrieved my police beacon and placed it on the table, sliding it towards me. "It is not something we have to worry about, but I thought you would want to keep appraised of their situation."

"Mmm."

"I took the liberty of contacting Mr. Keene in your place," she said, referencing the PRT's international liaison, "and explained the situation to him. He was very interested in your analysis of the duplicator's abilities and his possible relationship with the alleged victim."

"Mmm."

Once again she paused in her recitation. When I didn't offer any wisecracks in response to her remarks on Billy Williams, she looked up from the paperwork to shoot me a glance. I didn't read any worry in her expression, though I did notice her eyes shifting slightly as she regarded me. After a few moments, she closed the folder and placed it on the table.

"Sometimes I wonder if I should have remained a solo hero from the beginning," she said without preamble. "And not have let myself get pulled into the group dynamic." Her voice seemed somewhat wistful, out of character for the normally stoic hero.

I blinked and lifted my head to look at her directly.

She shook her head, as if to clear away unwanted thoughts. "It's just... I suppose I've missed this. Debriefing the team. Having another cape to talk shop with. Life as a solo hero... well, it has been a bit lonelier than I can remember it being."

"Then why'd you break up the team?" the words were out of my mouth before I could catch myself. She'd already explained herself to us once already, the day we split apart. I hadn't been happy with the decision—I don't think any of us were. But the alternative, staying together, had been more painful option than going our separate ways.

"Because seeing us back together would only make the reminders of what we have lost that much stronger," she said, her voice sounding pained. Her head was pointed in my direction, but she wasn't really looking at me, her eyes slightly unfocused as if looking into the distance. She cradled her left forearm against her side, idly rubbing at the fabric covering the scars I knew were hidden beneath it.

"None of what happened was your fault," I said.

"It was," she said sharply. "It was my suggestion to bring us there. It was my overconfidence... we weren't ready."

I snorted. "I don't really think _anyone_ is ever 'ready' for an Endbringer, Flurry."

"And yet," she said softly, "My hubris led me to believe we were. It was my arrogance that left us in the state we are now."

She was still hung up about Iceland. Not that I didn't have my own fair share of nightmares about the battle. I had been fortunate enough to be mostly on the sidelines, but even then I had suffered serious injuries. The others—being more offensively capable than myself and therefore closer to the action—had not fared nearly so well. She had taken personal responsibility for everything that had happened to us, and the resulting guilt had all but crushed her spirit.

"This may not mean as much to you, but speaking as the person who ended up being the least injured..." I began. I spoke quietly, forcing her to look at me and pay attention in order to understand what I was saying, "I don't blame you for what happened. Any of it. And when it's all said and done, even after all that's happened, I'd still trust you with my life."

She shook her head. A wordless denial.

I felt my mouth twitch as I tried to give her a reassuring smile, even if it felt a bit flat. "You'll always be a team leader to me, Flurry."

Flurry's face was an impassive mask as she digested that. She glanced towards the paperwork on the table, the wall over my head, then back to me. "I see," she said at last. Her voice, just like her expression, held no indication as to what she was feeling. "Thank you."

The way she had hesitated before replying spoke volumes, however. I sighed.

She took a deep breath as well, crossing her arms as she re-centred herself. "How is she?" she finally asked, nodding towards my shoulder and watching me closely for my reaction.

I felt my already weak smile vanish at the reminder. I shrugged and lifted my hand to my face, staring at my palm. Hovering just above my shoulder, Jamie mirrored my actions with a blank expression on her usually animated face.

"Still... not all there, I guess," I said. My tone was dull, having already worn myself out with a minor panic attack earlier. "It feels like I'm controlling a mindless puppet."

Flurry shifted her gaze to finally look at Jamie, looking downright _unnatural_ with her jerky, graceless movements. She focused back on me, "This doesn't happen often, I take it?"

"This has _never_ happened before," I said heatedly. I ran a hand down my face. "Sorry, I'm—I'm just not used to this. I guess I never really thought that the people around me could disappear like this."

Flurry nodded in sympathy, a bitter smile on her face.

I glanced at her, did a double-take. "Oh, bollocks. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking." I grimaced at the slip and scratched the back of my head contritely. "But seriously, I'm at a total loss of what to do here."

Her eyes flicked over to the timepiece against the wall and she sighed. "Well, I would suggest you get some rest since it has been a long day... except for the fact that it is still early afternoon. Also..." She leaned over to press her fingers against the folder on the table and slide it minutely in my direction, "...bureaucracy awaits."

I groaned and dropped my head against the surface. "But it's done already. I was just listening to you read yours off."

"Yes. I read off _my_ report. The good men and women stationed here would still like to have _yours_."

"You're still a mean Boss-lady, you know that?" I complained.

Flurry smiled, probably the first real one I'd seen from her in the last few months, and patted my shoulder before she spun on her heel and headed towards the door. "The sooner you finish, the sooner you can get some sleep. I will be seeing you around, 'Glass."

I idly waved goodbye as she left the conference room, then froze as her words caught up to me. _Get some sleep._

...

* * *

Unfortunately for me, the ability to fall asleep on command has long been a skill that has eluded me. At any other time, a day such as this—even a half day of a parahuman fight combined with the long slog of paperwork would have probably put me out like a light the moment my head hit the pillow.

Unfortunately for me, even as I returned to my parent's flat and tried to settle in for an early night, I was far too anxious to relax enough for even a little kip. It was like the worst case of insomnia I could ever imagine having, except I was conscious of my every waking moment and worried about what I might find once I passed over.

It was almost a relief to realize I had finally dozed off, finding the room changing around me somewhere between blink number eight-hundred and one-thousand. The cream-coloured walls and ceiling of my room transforming into the pastel greens and whites of a hospital room. I'd never been quite _aware_ of the transition before, usually just letting myself fade into consciousness as my mind made the transference between worlds.

Between _worlds_. Officially, Jamie had been a extension of my parahuman powers, a personality from within my psyche buried so deeply that she very nearly counted as her own person.

The truth was far stranger. As nearly as I could tell, Jamie and I were parallel universe counterparts. Amongst the infinite worlds in the multiverse, two of them had deviated at the moment we had been conceived, yet events had still remained nearly constant—until the fateful day we had simultaneously triggered our abilities following a horrific car accident.

Taking a quick glance at my ethereal, stubby blue arms, I knew I had successfully transferred over. By all appearances, our abilities were identical. Both of us could manifest ourselves in the other's world and 'ghost' around our hosts. Generally speaking, this manifestation only happened whilst the other was asleep. I was here because I had fallen asleep and Jamie's will was strong enough to anchor me here. When I was awake, I was able to assert my own will against hers and she was pulled over to my side. It was easier for me, because Jamie was _always_ unconscious. She had never woken up from the accident that I had managed to eventually walk away from.

Yet, she was still active, mentally. She was my ever-present companion, either as my personal ghost or as my host when I was hers. We couldn't hold conversations indefinitely, however. Sometimes—in the dead of the night when I could do nothing else but think—I'd wonder if the reason she had never woken up was because the constant use of my power had sapped her physical body's vitality.

A small part of me had wondered if the will behind her ghostly avatar had disappeared because she had finally recovered. But another part of me feared the exact opposite, that today I had pushed her too far somehow.

The moment I had recovered my vision, my gaze had immediately snapped to the girl in the hospital bed. A cursory examination told me that Jamie's body appeared to be relatively unchanged from the previous night. The years she'd spent in a coma had left her relatively undeveloped for a person our age, but as far as I understood she was as physically healthy as any person could reasonably be in her condition. The only new addition that I saw was an oxygen mask fitted over her nose and mouth.

But it was her eyes that I was focused on. They were _open_. They were wet with tears, her body's reaction to sudden re-exposure to light and years of accumulated sleep dust. Her stare had an unfocused look, almost cross-eyed... and yet her gaze seemed to be directed unerringly towards me.

_James...?_

As were the eyes of the doctor and the nurse at her bedside, interrupted in the middle of examining her. Both of them were staring at me in absolute shock, the nurse had her hands clasped over her mouth to cover up a surprised exclamation.

I blinked, the situation slowly dawning on me. "Oh... _bollocks._"

**ooo**

"This... is unprecedented," doctor said slowly.

_Hah, you _think_?_

I nodded slowly, careful not to make any moves which would startle the man or his assistant. "I can imagine," I said.

"I mean," he continued, running a hand through his thinning hair, "we had always known the patient was still showing signs of brain activity. That was the only reason we had maintained treatment for this long. By all precedents she should have been declared brain dea—but... a parahuman ability... this is... this is _fascinating._" He stared at Jamie, still reclining against a pillow the nurse had propped up behind her head. Her eyes were focused now, though half-lidded from apparent exhaustion and she made no move to enter the discussion herself.

At least, not verbally.

_Where. Is. Mama?_

"We'll have to let someone know, of course." The doctor frowned. "Except I don't even know _who_ we should inform. What did you say you were again?" he asked, looking at me. "Is this a false-positive, are _you_ the reason she's showing brain activity?"

"She's _fine._" I grimaced. "First things first, have you contacted her family?"

"Well, ah," the doctor glanced at his assistant again, who averted her gaze. "The thing is... you are—I mean, the patient is—_she_ is past the age of majority, yes?"

I blinked. "Er, yes. And?"

"Well, you must understand... she's been in a coma for the last twelve years."

_This is not helping to explain where Mama is._

"This is not helping to explain where Ma—where her parents are." I was starting to feel slightly uneasy. I didn't like where this was going.

"Your parents... from what I understand, they tried to do everything they could. Don't believe for a minute that they were uncaring. They went from hospital to hospital, lobbied for all of the professional opinions they could find—and nothing they tried worked." The doctor was sweating slightly. I wondered if he'd be this nervous if his patient were a normal person.

I had a sudden, new horrifying thought. "_What_ is this place?"

The doctor's mouth flapped for several moments, not speaking. "It... it's a research facility," he admitted, suddenly speaking in a rush. "This is not a hospital. We were keeping the patient alive for... the purpose of researching her brain activities. We thought if we could crack the secret of how she was keeping her brain in such good condition... well we certainly weren't expecting parahuman abilities to be involved..."

Jamie made a strangled sort of noise from her bed, her eyes wide. The doctor glanced at her, then back at me.

_No. No no no nonono..._

His tone was apologetic. "Her parents... they had her legally emancipated last year."

"They gave up," my voice was dull.

_NO!_

He nodded glumly. "They waived their rights to her fate and... she was passed into our care." He perked up, "But I assure you we have done nothing to her physically. The farthest we've gotten was observation! We had some of her records from her years in the hospital but they usually don't continuously monitor brainwaves so we had her hooked up to our—"

Jamie screamed. It was a frail, piteous sound, coming from vocal equipment far too weak from disuse, but it was enough to cut off the man in the middle of his excuses.

Her mental cry was far, far worse.

"I—" I wasn't sure how I managed to keep my voice from displaying the horror I was feeling. "I think we'd like to be left alone... for now at least."

"Yes, yes of course," the doctor—the _scientist_—agreed readily. He stood up from his chair, nearly knocking it backwards in his haste. "Er, you don't mind if we leave the monitoring equipment attach—"

"Just GO!" I shouted. I heard Jamie echoing the command through my head in a display of eerie synchronicity.

He beat a hasty retreat, his assistant following on his heels. As the door clicked shut behind them, I descended closer to Jamie's bed, watching as she hiccupped and choked through her sobs.

"Jamie?"

_What?_ she asked bitterly.

"I'm sorry."

She didn't respond. It was nearly an hour before she calmed down, her body slumping against her pillow in exhaustion. Plenty of time for me to try and think of ways this could have been prevented, or at least managed even slightly better.

Honestly, I knew that Jamie's body having survived this long was a miracle in itself. I just had never thought about _how_ such a thing could have reasonably happened. Was it too much to have hoped my parents, _her_ parents would have been able to keep up with the exorbitant hospital fees simply out of familial responsibility, or even love?

_James._ Her mental voice was flat. A prelude to a statement, rather than a question or a plea.

I turned my head to look at her and immediately flinched. She was glaring at me; her eyes were hard, almost accusing.

_You lied to me too,_ she said.

I hung my head. "I'm sorry," I repeated, my voice barely a whisper.

Sometimes in the dark of the night, I had repeated those words to myself, like a mantra. Sometimes I heard a response, though I'd never dared to believe the actual source. _It's not your fault._ I prayed this would be one of the times I'd hear those words again.

They never came.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**—one of my fears when trying to write a serious piece is that i go a bit heavy-handed on the drama. sometimes people say it's fine but alot of times that's how i personally read it._

_lemme know what you think where/if i did so. with examples, if possible._

_maybe i can try to fix it for future chapters  
_


	4. Transparency 1-03

**Transparency 1.03**

* * *

This should have been a happier occasion for me. Seeing Jamie awake and conscious had been a goal of mine for years, yet even now I was unable to to bring myself to feel pleased with the current situation.

I busied myself floating around the room, exploring. No sense in hiding from the staff now that they already knew about me. Jamie lay where she rested—not much else she could do otherwise—and she stubbornly remained unresponsive, even as one of the assistants gave a look in to see if she needed anything.

After my fiftieth read of the few posters, book titles, and charts in the room that were visible to me, my patience broke down and I spiraled in to hover over Jamie's bed.

"So what happened?" I asked. "For some reason I can't recall what happened to you after you tracked down the duplicator."

Jamie glared at me from her bedside, then deliberately turned her head away. _I don't really want to talk about it right now, _she sent. _It's not something I want to remember at the moment, and you're a liar._

"And I _said_ I was sorry!" I said, exasperated. "Look, I can't really excuse what I did, but you didn't seem to know what was going on. Bloody hell, _I_ didn't know what was going on! For all I knew you thought you were in a really weird, really interesting dream. I—I didn't want to take that away from you..."

_Hmph. You clearly didn't think much of my intelligence._

"I never said you were stupid—" I began.

_But you never treated me as an equal! You forget we can share our thoughts. You've always thought of me as your bratty younger sister!_ She turned her head pointedly to stare at me. _Well if I'm the kid sister, then consider this to be my tantrum!_

I fell silent with the realisation that she was right. I _had_ always treated Jamie as someone to be sheltered and protected, trying to put limits on what information could reach her. Without realizing it, I had subverted my goal of bringing her up to speed and allowing her to resume her life with minimal interruptions.

What was it that Flurry been talking about earlier today? How making assumptions in regards to the the team had effectively ruined us. Even if I didn't agree with my former leader's conclusions, apparently she was not the only person who had been blindsided by their hubris. If I hadn't been so concerned with thinking I knew what was best for Jamie...

My eyes widened as a new thought occurred to me. What if, by keeping Jamie from realizing that she _wasn't_ in a dream, she hadn't put in the necessary effort to struggle for her own recovery. What if—

Jamie sent the mental equivalent of an exasperated sigh towards me. _You're a total open book, you realise that? I caught on a _long_ time ago. That fact that I didn't wake up early enough for Mama and Papa to... well, it's either _my _fault for not trying or still my fault for having a stupid body. In which case there's no more room for you to take any blame._ She closed her eyes against a new rush of tears. _Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, though._

"Hindsight's a bloody pain," I agreed. I frowned, "Just how much _do_ you know, anyhow?"

_Enough to know that wasn't the _only_ thing you were lying to me about._

I frowned, "Like what?"

She glared at me, as if trying to determine if I was being deliberately obtuse or if I really couldn't recall what she was referring to. Trying to turn the tables against her, I tried to pick up on what she was thinking. It was like trying to read a brick wall. I picked up lots of different surface impressions, but all of them were just the same variation of each other. Nothing useful.

She turned away in a huff. _If you don't remember, then we have nothing more to discuss for the moment._

I sighed.

...

* * *

Thanks to my having turned in early, I ended up waking early enough that the sun wasn't even peeking out from the horizon. Jamie's avatar floated in place over by the telly, devoid of any intelligence and I could immediately tell that she hadn't crossed back over with me. I knew that I wouldn't be able to force myself back into even a light doze, so I shucked the covers and grabbed a towel from my dresser.

After finishing with a shower and brushing my teeth, I dressed in rough, but clean clothes and stepped downstairs. As I'd expected, both of my parents were already awake and getting started with their day. They were native Japanese who had immigrated here a few years prior to Kyushu's destruction. From what stories I was able to glean from them, my father had come seeking further educational opportunities and my mother had come along for the ride, more or less.

Either things hadn't worked out, or he'd simply found a new calling in life—either way the end result was that he'd suddenly decided to open up his own restaurant. I might have thought it to be a poor decision, except that in the time following the Endbringer attack in Japan there had been a wave of migration from there to the western world. The sudden influx of refugees had increased demand enough that we made a fairly good living and he had been laying plans for having me take over the business once I had grown older.

I wasn't too keen at first. Although my parents were aware that I was a parahuman, my abilities were fairly inoffensive as far as powers go and they weren't terribly supportive of my desire to be a hero. I avoided any discussions or attempts to recruit me by using the structured schedule that came from being in school and filling up my spare time by going out in costume as part of a team.

Between the group's dissolution and the fact that I had elected not to continue on to higher education, I now found that I had a lot more free time available to me and I had reluctantly spent more time with my parents in order to learn the family trade.

Still, it wasn't like being a restaurant owner—or at least a worker—didn't have _some _appeal to it. If nothing else, it could provide suitable cover for my outings as a cape. Suspicious movements in and out of the building could be explained away as late-night deliveries or supply runs, for example.

Pop was in the kitchen, preparing the broths and the stews that would be on today's menu, whereas Mum was helping with sorting out the vegetables—vegetables and spices I recognized as having been on my shopping list the previous day. I nearly groaned and wanted to hit myself. Yesterday I had been in the midst of shopping when I got sidetracked by the whole cafe brawl. In my haste to return home, I must have left my groceries behind.

Mum glanced up at me as I entered the dining room and clicked her tongue. _"Your lady friend from school dropped this off whilst you were asleep,"_ she said to me in Japanese. Her tone was lightly laced with disapproval. _"You should pay closer attention to your responsibilities. She said you had run off and left the food with her. She was forced to come all this way to deliver them."_

"Er..." I stopped in place, more than slightly confused. _Lady friend?_ _From school? _This was news to me. Was it a sad thing that I'd no idea I had any friends of the female variety? Actually, now that I thought about it, I couldn't think of a single one of my former classmates that I had anything but a scholarly relationship with.

The reminder about 'my responsibilities' had me hunting down a damp washcloth. I began removing the chairs from atop a nearby table and sweeping the surface with the cloth.

_She's talking about Flurry, Big Brother._ Jamie suddenly entered the conversation, still upstairs in my room where I'd left her avatar. She'd evidently been listening in. _Remember when we brought everyone here for lunch a ways back?_

"Oh!" I said aloud. At the time, the _'these are just my classmates'_-excuse had been the first thing that had come to mind to explain our association. "_Riiight..._ yes, I'll have to thank her next time I see her." To be honest, I think I was more surprised that Mum had even remembered that meeting. That had been _years_ ago.

I moved on to the next table, judging my current one to be clean enough. _Are you okay?_ I sent back to Jamie.

_Annoyed,_ she said bluntly. _I was hoping to pull an all-nighter just to get back at you, but this body of mine is too weak right now. I fell asleep._ The last part came as an irritated grumble.

"You are up early," Pop said. He was the one who'd made it a point for me to learn to speak English fluently and habit made him continue to speak it whenever I was around.

"I slept early," I reminded him. "Yesterday was rather exhausting. Sorry for missing out on dinner." _You should come down and greet Mum and Pop, if you're 'awake'._

_They're not _my_ Mama and Papa,_ Jamie replied bitterly. _Mine wouldn't be asking after your health and caring for your future._

_"So this girl,"_ Mum said suddenly, as if on cue, _"is she unattached?"_

The embarrassment was _almost_ worth it, considering Jamie was laughing for the first time I'd seen since her awakening.

**ooo**

"What do you think happens when I touch something?" Jamie said. We were currently out on patrol—the restaurant's preparations for the day were pretty much complete and my parents wouldn't need me back until the dinner rush. Jamie was crouching in the air, one arm wrapped around her lower body whilst the other traced patterns at her 'feet'.

"Nothing. You'll just pass through them," I said reflexively. I tilted my head back to find her glaring at me and winced. Right, I was supposed to stop hiding things from her now. "Well, to anything inanimate, I guess. Living things... you sorta give them a kind of mental shock or something."

"Like what?" she asked.

I lowered my head and looked out across the street from my rooftop vantage point. "Well, with smaller animals like bugs and birds, I've seen you pretty much knock them out of the sky after you pass through them."

She winced. "Did they recover?"

"I don't know," I replied honestly. "Generally there were other things going on at the time. Paying attention to them was sort of low on the priority list for the both of us."

"I see... and what about... people?"

"I've been a bit cautious when I'm directing you. As far as I know you've only really 'touched' three people. Two of them ended up more or less catatonic, at least temporarily." I scratched my head, anticipating her next question. "One, of course, was our duplicator. The other was Nightwalker—do you remember him? I think it was during our first month with the group."

"I remember," she said quietly. "I thought Volley had taken him down." She floated around in front of me. "Who was the third?" she demanded.

I shrugged. "It was me. Back when we were first getting used to each other. I remember you being so excited about the fact you could fly. You were flitting back and forth across my bedroom almost faster than I could see." My face darkened as the memory resurfaced in my mind. "And then... you tried to hug me. It... I don't remember if I passed out or not. But to me it felt like I had returned to the Darkness for a moment... back to being alone, back to trying to reach out for something, _anything_ to keep it at bay somehow."

She was quiet for several moments, thinking. She lifted her head, "And you think I did that to the others too?"

I nodded, "It's a possibility."

"And they couldn't handle it."

"We couldn't either. I'm pretty sure that was our trigger event."

She thought again, scrunching her face in concentration. "Do you think you could handle it now?"

I shivered. _"What?" _I asked, hoping I hadn't heard her correctly.

She looked thoughtful. "I don't remember the first two events, maybe because I was in and out before I could even think about it. But when I was finding the duplicator for you... I don't recall just what made me try to jump into his body, but I sort of remember what happened afterwards."

She glanced at me, as if looking for permission. I tightened my jaw and nodded for her to continue.

"It was... it was kind of like what you said. I was in the Darkness again, except there was... something else to it—like a faint light, a way out. Except the Darkness seemed to press back against me, keeping me from reaching it. By the time I was close enough to see the light in reach, I saw you. I saw you reaching for me, and I tried to reach back."

_The duplicator's body turning towards me, his body trembling with strain as if under a great stress.  
His eyes were wide and his mouth slowly drew open, saying..._

"You called to me," I said.

"I tried," she admitted. "And once I saw you, the very moment I relaxed my efforts, the Darkness took the chance to throw me back out..." She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "I woke up. _For real._ It was like some sort of... _barrier _had broken within me when I was ejected. I woke up for real... and you weren't there. I shouted for you, but _you weren't there._ It was the first time I could even remember you not being around when I needed you."

"You... were trying to take over the duplicator's body," I summarized. "And the duplicator fought back. The mental shock must have been enough to break through whatever was keeping you from waking up yourself..."

"...and suddenly we were two people again, each in our own worlds," she continued the thought even as I was realising it.

I shook my head, trying to get it around this terrifying conclusion. "You shouldn't do that again," I said firmly. "Messing around with people's heads is like _the_ number one way to get the authorities to come down hard on the both of us."

"That wasn't all, though," Jamie said.

I lifted my head to stare at her again. She had the look of someone about to give some very bad news.

"It's not the first time I remember feeling that way," she said slowly. She looked me in the eye. "I did it to you too."

I could feel my mouth falling open. "But I thought you said you didn't remember that far," I protested.

She shook her head, "I don't mean what you remember... I mean, when you were in _my_ world..." She frowned. "You kept me in the Darkness. On _purpose! _You kept me from seeing your own point of view!"

My shoulders slumped. "I didn't want you to..."

"Yes yes... we've already established that you were _protecting_ me from knowing I was the Littlest Coma Patient." She sounded rather annoyed, justifiably so. "My point was, I saw the same 'light' in you that I saw in the duplicator. And I remember having to force my way to it so that I _could_ see. Except you didn't seem to fight me as much, if at all."

Startled, I cast into my memories, back to those long nights—all the periods I had spent in quiet contemplation. I tried and couldn't even recall the few times when Jamie had seemed to stop babbling for companionship.

_I was _not _babbling!_ She deliberately sent the retort as a thought. She relaxed slightly, floating closer in as her face softened, though her eyes still bore directly into mine. "What I think," she explained, "is that I can... possess certain living things. The more complex their minds are, the more they'll fight my control. Perhaps I'd do better with creatures with more basic thought patterns. Also..." Jamie placed a finger to her mouth as she mulled over her next point. "I'm wondering if I could possess _you_. We have, after all, pretty much been in each other's heads for quite some time. I don't think there's anybody I'd know better." She held out her hand. "Do you trust me?"

I stared at her hand for several long seconds. _Did_ I trust her? To do what? To hijack my body? To not twist my thoughts around? I was pretty sure she couldn't do _that_, but...

Mind alteration was one of the most feared abilities around for the world. The only known telepath, the Simurgh, was arguably the most destructive Endbringer known when one factored in the messed up things it made its victims pull off months or even years later. Entire cities had been known to be wiped from the map after the Simurgh attacked. Not because of unrecoverable property damage, but simply because _entire populations _could no longer be trusted to remain human.

The Parahumans Online message boards were a good source of international news, info, and warnings regarding anything to do with capes. There were numerous individuals in the world capable of bending another's will, most of them in the United States. Nearly all of them were villains. If Jamie's abilities—or were these _my_ abilities?—ever came to light, I could easily see us being classed as such in the minds of people worldwide.

At the same time, I had already betrayed Jamie's faith in me once. Could I afford to _not_ extend my own trust in her without breaking our relationship? Should that even have been an issue?

I extended my hand and grasped hers. No, I wouldn't allow myself to let Jamie down again.

Not ever again.

**ooo**

_This feels weird._

I stared at my hand, turning them this way and that, flipping them around to inspect the fingers. The fabric around one of my gloves was a bit threadbare, I noted. I turned my head and walked over to the edge of the roof, reaching for the railing.

_Whoa! Do that some more!_

I frowned. "Which part? Turning around or reaching for the railing?"

So far, even as Jamie 'possessed' my body, I had honestly not felt any different than I normally did. She'd told me everything looked to be normal on her end, but she didn't seem to be disappointed at all. Rather, she seemed to be enjoying the sensations I took for granted, like touch, and of basic actions like...

_Both? Ooh no, wait. Walk! _Walk,_ slave!_

...like walking. From my own experiences I knew it was a different sort of process than simply _willing_ yourself to move from point A to point B like the way we could when 'ghosting' around. I dutifully paced back and for several times as she shrieked and squealed as if she were on a roller coaster.

_I can't walk in my body,_ she explained. _Not at the moment anyhow. I could barely even move my arms. Stupid muscle atrophy._

"Ah, I see."

_Okay, I think I've got it now._

Huh? Got what? My question was answered when I spun in place and walked towards the fire escape I had used to scale the building's side. "Er, Jamie?" I tried to reassert control over my body but I felt no response at all. It was _extremely_ unnerving. "Jamie, you've made your point."

I felt myself slowing from my brisk walk and then come to a complete stop. I tested my legs again, but apparently she had not yet relinquished control. Instead, my hands came up and began running fingers over my cheeks. They traced my nose and lips, and suddenly I felt my mouth opening.

_"It's like an old memory,"_ she said from my own mouth. _"Being able to touch my own face... even if it's not." _I blinked. _"Wow, this is even weirder than hearing your own voice in a recording."_

A tingling in my limbs that I hadn't realized was present faded away and I felt myself settling into place, just as Jamie floated out of my chest and turned to face me. She had a melancholic expression on her face as she seemed to review the past few minutes.

_Did you have fun?_ I caught the words before they emerged from my mouth. Too flippant for this sort of situation. She must have picked up on my thoughts because she lifted her eyes and smiled briefly before schooling her features and squaring her shoulders.

"I have a favor I want to ask of you," she said.

**ooo**


	5. Transparency 1-04

**Transparency 1.04**

* * *

The building was situated in one of the more rural parts of the countryside, several kilometres outside of the city. It had been erected near the side of a small stream and a somewhat antiquated-looking waterwheel had been added to an extension that reached out to the stream's bank. Both the cabin and the extended building showed obvious signs of wear, broken sidings and boarded up windows suggesting damage that had been left unrepaired for some time.

Trees and flora dotted the nearby fields. They were too diverse and scattered to look intentionally planted, yet dense enough to hinder anything larger than foot traffic. The overall effect promoted a sort of spooky ambience, all but ensuring that no visitors would feel comfortable wandering onto the property at random.

My path to reach the cabin was not a straight one. Using my phone to read the directions that had been mailed to me, I slalomed back and forth past several trees and made at least one full circuit around the building before I arrived at the doorstep. Just as I raised my hand to knock, I heard a brief electronic whine and the door began to move on its own, forcing me to take a step back as it opened towards me, revealing a wheelchair-bound figure blocking the entryway.

I coughed. "You know, if you were going for the 'abandoned cabin in the woods'-type thing, I would have left the main floor alone to continue the trend of uninhabitability and stuck all of the secret stuff underground. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. "And what was with the path you told me to take?"

A young man with slightly unkempt, blond hair reaching to his shoulders glared at me from behind his glasses. "Digging was too much effort," he replied. "And nobody's really bothered me so far, so it's apparently working." The wheelchair he was seated on whirled around with a similar electronic whine as the I'd heard before, moving away from the entryway to allow me passage. "As for the path, let's just say, 'it builds character,' and leave it at that."

I shuddered slightly as I imagined what might have befallen me had I deviated from his precise instructions, then stepped into the cabin and closed the door behind me. Once inside, I could appreciate just how much the exterior of the building contrasted with the interior. It was just as messy as one might have expected from the outside, but it was the kind of disarray that came from being a workshop that saw constant use, rather than from years of neglect.

I doubt I could have properly identified even a quarter of what I saw inside. Humanoid parts that could either have been powered armor or simply incomplete jumpsuits built a small pile over in one corner. An entire wall was lined with shelves, filled with brightly-glowing jars of some kind that flickered at random intervals. Probably half of the space was taken up by long tubes and cylinders—possibly parts for guns or cannons. At the other end of the workshop was an open door leading into a darkened hallway. Living quarters I assumed. Wires stretched all over the walls and ceilings, with a few thick cables running across the floor between piles of discarded machinery.

"So, what brings you to my humble abode, James?" the Tinker asked. His wheelchair was carefully navigating the one clear path from the door to an open area near the living quarters. A computer station had been set up by the far wall, complete with a trio of monitors. One of the screens had a three-dimensional modeling program on it, the other two displayed what appeared to be an opened email and a web-browser.

"Hello to you too, Volley," Jamie said in a slightly miffed tone. She flew past my shoulder, heading for the wall of shelves and jars. She liked shiney things.

Volley paused and looked over his shoulder, tossing out an abbreviated wave. "Hey, Pretty Lady." He resumed his course towards the workstation. "And call me Pete, I'm not in costume anymore."

"You could be," I said. I'd followed him and flicked a hand against his wheelchair. "I could have sworn you received an insurance payout to take care of your injuries. It wasn't enough?"

Volley—Pete—looked down at the stumps that were the remains of his legs and frowned. "I didn't see a point. I had a few ideas about building my own prosthetics and thought I'd take care of it myself rather than letting some hack job have a go at it."

"... and?" I prompted him.

Pete sighed. "I... sort of got side-tracked with a new design. I managed to scrape together this wheelchair for myself, and it worked well enough that I sort of... forgot about it."

Jamie floated back over, having satisfied her own curiosity. "You forgot about it...? You forgot about _walking?"_

"Well, there was that... and also I realized I was no good at designing actual prosthesis devices," Pete said with a rueful grin. "Nerve connections, locomotion, artificial skeleton structures—all of that is sort of beyond me. By the time I'd realized that, I had... sort of spent all of the insurance money."

"Brilliant," I said dryly. "Great job, there."

Pete narrowed his eyes. "So, you never answered my question. Why are you guys here?"

I pressed a hand against my chest in mock offense, "What, I'm not allowed to visit my former mates and simply ask after their health?"

"Have you paid your respects to Wu, yet?" Pete asked me pointedly.

That brought me up short. "... I haven't found the time, yet," I admitted. I frowned and lowered my hand. "I did run into Flurry though, the other day."

"Oh?" Pete had swiveled in his chair, plugging away at his computer whilst we spoke. A not-to-subtle sign as to his level of interest in the conversation. "And how is the Boss-lady?"

"She's coping... in her own way, I suppose. Absolutely does not want me calling her Boss-lady anymore."

Pete sighed and nodded, still not looking at me. "That's about what I figured. Look, I'm glad to see you, don't get me wrong. But I'm in the middle of a few things so I'd rather get back to work. So if you don't need anything important... ?"

I hesitated and caught Jamie's eye. She frowned at me and jabbed a finger towards our former teammate. "Actually, there was one other thing. I was hoping you could give us some information, but seeing as you seem to be having problems with it—what _do_ you know about prosthetics? Or is there anyone you could you refer us to?"

Pete's hands stilled on the keyboard and he turned his head to peer at me closely. "You seem to be fine," he concluded, part statement and part question.

"Not for me." I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder at Jamie's head. "She's interested in the mechanics of walking, I thought I'd indulge her curiosity."

He stared at me. "You came to me for that?"

I shrugged, "You're the only Tinker I know."

"I'm a Tinker who tries his best to keep a low profile," he replied. "That way I'm not hounded by every government flunky or two-bit crook looking to ask me to make weapons for them and their kind." He waved his hand around his workshop. "Why else do you think I set up shop all the way out here? I'm not even attached to the city's power-grid."

"Oh?" I looked around his workshop—from the shining shelves at the back to the clearly operational computers. "You're running all _this_ from a waterwheel?"

He smirked, "Trade secret."

"I never realize you had to put up with that kind of harassment," Jamie said. "That's been going on ever since we split up? We never knew."

He waved his hand, brushing aside the implied apology. "It's just the nature of the power," he said. "Things like what you, Wu Lung, and Flurry do, they're just things that awe the normals. Tinkers _make_ stuff, tangible things that even common folk can use if we dumb down the process for them. We don't really have powers unto ourselves, we're more like force-multipliers. Some guys can make powered armour, some can make hyper-efficient power supply systems, some can make hand-held artillery.

"Put all that together and all of the big organizations would really, _really _like having a Tinker on their side." He sighed. "I guess I was lucky. I sort of had it good, with you three."

"Four," Jamie added absently.

He nodded, accepting the correction without comment. "What I mean is you guys never really tried to abuse my skills. You didn't demand that I equip you lot with my latest and greatest, for example."

"You already helped us out plenty," I pointed out. "Those communicators you scrounged were fine for our purposes. And I can't speak for the others, but I didn't really need much more than that." I shrugged. "Besides, I like to think that we were friends, even if we were coworkers of a sort first. It wouldn't have felt right to take advantage of a friend like that."

"I'd like to think that," he said wistfully. "But, going back to the main topic, I'm afraid I can't help you at the moment." He waved towards the screen that he was using to browse online. I noticed the window was displaying the Parahumans Online messaging boards. "Most of my research on prosthetics has been done somewhat anonymously so far. I haven't yet gone in-depth to find any other Tinkers who specialize in the field. Most of the ones I've found that seem to lean in that direction aren't local, so you'd have a hard time trying to get in touch anyhow."

"I see," I said, trying not to let my disappointment show. "Thanks for even that information, at least."

"Anytime."

"James always wanted a flight suit," Jamie suddenly chimed in.

I snapped my head around to find her smirking.

She held her hand to the opposite side of her mouth, leaning towards Pete conspiratorially, "He was just too polite to ask."

Pete chuckled and pointed at me. "Now, that just wont do," he said with mock sternness. "Jamie, you should keep a close eye on him."

She raised her hand in a salute, "Aye, sir!"

"Now, buzz off, I'm working here." Pete made a shooing gesture and I obediently retraced my path through the debris field back to the exit. I paused there as he triggered a command from his console, activating the doorway.

"Hey," I called. "If you need anything, just let me know, alright?"

He gave me a thumbs up as I stepped back outside. Just before the door closed, I heard him call out one last time. "There aren't any traps, by the way! I was just messing with you!"

That bastard.

**ooo**

Volley's cabin was far enough from civilisation that we had a bit of a walk just to reach an obvious trail. Thankfully Jamie was able to keep me oriented in the correct direction.

I had been walking for only a few minutes before she finally spoke her mind.

"That was it?" she asked.

I didn't look at her, focused more on where I was placing my feet. "He had nothing to tell; he didn't know. It was something of a long shot to begin with."

"You barely told him anything. _'I wanted to try walking'?_ How was he supposed to work from _that?_"

I stopped and turned to face her. "It's the best I could explain, given the circumstances. I can't exactly go around telling people about your true nature."

Her face clouded. "This had better not be some half-witted notion of yours to _protect_ me," she warned. "Because that excuse is starting to wear thin."

"It's not," I assured her. I stopped and thought about it. "Although if it is, it's because I'm also trying to protect myself as well."

Aside from using parahuman abilities to kill or mind-control other people, dimensional travel was also one of the Big No-no's in the unofficial rulebook. The existence of parallel universes had long been proven by various Thinker and Tinker capes. Communications between our world and one or two alternate worlds had been accepted, but any and all attempts to bridge the gap suffered enormous penalties from the various governments of the world. In my mind, what Jamie and I did was far too close to breaching that directive to risk being caught.

Jamie mulled over the point as I let her read my thought process rather than trying to explain it in words. "Volley wouldn't turn us in," she said finally.

"I hope you're right," I said. I turned and continued walking. "But I'd rather not risk it without a _very_ good reason, either."

"He wouldn't have to risk anything if you could use your own power correctly instead of relying on me," she muttered darkly.

I had no answer to that, so I continued walking in silence.

Last night, Jamie had me to try and possess her in the same manner she had done to me earlier that day. What we found was that although I was able to subsume myself into her body without any issues, I was unable to affect her to the same degree she could with me. I couldn't assume control over any of her limbs.

Part of that may have been because her muscles were too weak to move on their own—I wouldn't be able to override a control that didn't exist. Jamie apparently believed I simply wasn't trying hard enough. I, however, had suspicions that my particular powerset lay in a different direction.

While I tried to figure out just _what _I could do in my ghost form, I offered the compromise of finding out if Volley had known anything about artificially enhancing Jamie's strength, either through leg braces or some other possible Tinker devices we could try to easily hunt down in her world. However, I couldn't quite get the information I needed to know without letting him know about Jamie's condition, which was something I absolutely did not want anyone else to find out.

As I was busy thinking of my next move, I suddenly felt my link to Jamie _shift_ and I stopped walking in order to concentrate on the variance. I could tell she was still present in this world—several hundred metres away and flitting around the forest—but the sensory input I was receiving from her was subtly altered. Her vision seemed to be sharper and her sense of hearing was magnified. I belatedly realised I could also feel the wind of her passage as she flew through the air.

Just then a tiny bird, barely ten centimetres in size, zipped past my ear and circled my head. A rather plump ball of brown and grey landed on my shoulder and twittered at me, absolutely fearless, completely out of character for the local wildlife. Even as I narrowed my eyes with suspicion, it tweetled once more and then I felt a sharp pain as it nipped at my ear.

"Jamie!" I shouted, batting at the bird who nimbly dodged my hand. "Gerroff me!"

The wren suddenly keeled over, pitching off my shoulder as Jamie floated in its place, giggling madly.

I gingerly ran my fingers over my ear, feeling a slight tender area around the lobe. Fortunately she hadn't broken skin. I took a step back and glared at her. "What was that for?" I demanded.

"Testing a theory," she said pertly. "I told you I'd had the idea that possession was made easier if I knew the mindset of the person better, which is why I could do you but not other people. My other theory was that I could assume control of more simple-minded creatures as well."

"Congratulations," I said, not quite able to keep myself from being short with her. I dropped into a crouch, scanning the ground briefly before my eyes settled on the wren. It was completely still except for the movement of its chest, rapidly beating as it hyperventilated. "And did you think about what might happen if you impose your will over these 'simple-minded creatures'?"

Jamie floated down to get a closer look for herself. "Is it still alive?"

I reached a finger out slowly. "I think so. But you certainly gave it a fright, if you didn't drive it completely bonkers." I gently prodded the bird in the side and it twitched slightly, still breathing rapidly.

I gave Jamie a sharp glare before I reached out my other hand, rolling the bird into my palm and standing up. "Where did you find it?"

"Um..." Jamie spun around in a brief circle to orient herself, then looked at me apologetically. "I don't remember..."

I sighed and stood in place, bird in hand and hoping it would recover in a timely manner. "And how are _you?_"

"Um, good?" She grasped my meaning immediately and patted herself down, giving me a nervous thumbs up. "I don't feel anything wrong." She paused for a moment and then pointed at me sternly, "And no bird-brain wisecracks."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I said. I glanced down into my hands, then glared at her. "So, are you proud of yourself?"

She blinked. "What?"

I brandished the comatose bird, holding it just under her nose. "_This _is what I was afraid of. I wasn't just protecting you, Jamie. I was also protecting other people and things _from_ you!"

She seemed to wilt under my gaze and retreated a few paces from my hands. "I didn't _mean _to..." she protested. "I mean, the others... I didn't really _remember_, and they were bad guys anyhow..." She raised her eyes, even as she kept her head lowered. "I'm not a bad person..."

"You could be a weapon, Jamie," I said bluntly. "An immensely _effective _one, if these examples are anything to go by." I softened my tone and stepped towards her again. I lifted my free hand to pat her head. It passed through slightly so I raised it back to the level where it would be if I could touch her normally. "But, I don't _want _you to be one. If people saw me using you as a weapon... then they wouldn't see _you—_if that makes any sense..."

She reached her hands up to hold mine, continuing the charade I had started and trying to cling to that minor offer of comfort. "I know what you mean," she said. "I'm sorry, Big Brother..."

I felt movement in my hand and looked down to see the wren finally starting to come back to itself. It flipped itself over to its feet, testing its wings briefly. Its head snapped towards Jamie and gave her a scathing cheep before launching itself back into the air, carefully avoiding her.

I smirked and continued walking, dropping my hands back to my sides. "Somehow I don't think it accepted."

Jamie didn't smile at my attempted humour.

...

* * *

"Are you feeling alright? We're worried that this whole experience seems to have altered your circadian rhythm." A nurse stood at the foot of the bed, wringing her hands nervously as she stared at Jamie. She carefully avoided looking at me.

Jamie vocalized a rather un-ladylike word, or as close as she could get with her current speech capabilities.

The nurse still got the gist. "Well, I'll be back with your supper then... or would this be breakfast?" she asked.

Jamie mumbled something else that didn't quite come across.

"Anything she wont throw up... or that crap she had last night," I translated for her. "Apparently the only thing worse than hospital food is a hospital protein shake."

The nurse all but squeaked out an affirmation and retreated from the room.

_This sucks!_ Jamie complained as the door clicked shut. _I want to be able to talk on my own, already!_

"You're getting there," I said encouragingly. "When you first woke up, you couldn't even groan once for 'yes', twice for 'no'."

Her eyes snapped towards me. _Not. Helping._

I raised my hands placatingly in surrender.

_Try again,_ she demanded. Her meaning was clear.

"I'm not going to try to possess your arms and legs again. At least not so soon. Let's wait for you to get a bit more strength in them first."

_No, see if you can do anything with my voice._

"O...kay. But I think we're going to have the same problems."

_Humour me._

I lifted my arm in a parody of her habitual response. "Aye, ma'am!"

_...do I really look like that when I do that?_

"Pretty much, yeah," I said. I lowered myself towards her chest and focused on her body, on her _presence_.

She kept herself open and I was quickly able to orient myself to align my entire being within hers. Interestingly enough, I felt like I could move my viewpoint around and she'd still be able to interpret what I saw as her own viewpoint. I wasn't seeing with her eyes and she could somehow supplement her vision with what I saw. I turned my senses towards the pillow beneath her head and focused in enough to see several stray hairs scattered across its surface... as well as some dandruff.

_Thank you for pointing out that I am in _desperate_ need of a shower,_ she said archly. _We can test dual-vision in _your _body, maybe give each other 'spidey-senses' later. Now, talking. Go._

I _felt_ myself link to her body, though I couldn't explain what it felt like beyond the sudden sensation of weight. Bracing myself, I tried taking control over her mouth and sounding out the alphabet.

_A, B, C, D, E..._

Nothing. Not even a twitch of her lips.

Jamie's frustration coincided with mine, briefly building in on each other and creating a somewhat painful feedback loop before I withdrew myself from her body and floated above her. Her face was pinched, though she didn't bother vocalising her displeasure.

_It's not fair_, she mentally complained, squeezing her eyes shut. _Why does my body hate me?_

I floated down to 'sit' beside her head and quasi-pat her on the forehead comfortingly. "I know a lot of girls would probably be saying that exact same phrase, although the context would be much different.

I heard her grunt in amusement. _Puberty. I'm sort of glad I missed out on _that._ Could you imagine what it would have been like if I had to put up with _hormones_ as a ghost?_

I made a face. "Sca~ary mental image. Let's not go there, shall we?"

I felt the pillow vibrate as she shook in laughter—her head and shoulders twitching in time with the weak sounds coming from her throat. I sat up straight. "Huh."

_What?_

"Um... can you do that again? Laugh, I mean?"

_That's not how comforting a person works. _You _have to do something to make me laugh. You can't just _tell _me to do so and hope I feel better because of it._

"Never mind," I said. I half twisted around, moving my hand from her head to the pillow and concentrated. I didn't _feel_ anything from the pillow, but then I hadn't really felt anything from her either.

_James?_

I let myself sink into the fabric, felt my senses expand to fill out and permeate throughout the whole object. _O...kay,_ I sent after a few moments, _this is odd._

_A pillow?_ she asked, her tone full of disbelief. _Your power is that you can possess... a pillow. That is so _lame!

I meant to rise above her so I could face her and scold her properly, except when I gave myself the command to rise up, I could feel myself taking Jamie with me. Her neck tilted into an uncomfortable angle as the pillow lifted her head away from the bed.

_Hey!_

Shocked, I paused in my ascent then 'looked' around. The pillow, naturally, had no eyes to speak of, yet I was able to sense my surroundings normally. At least I didn't think it had eyes. _Tell me I don't have googly eyes,_ I pleaded.

_I can't turn my head to see, dummy. Now let me down, this is _hurting_ my neck!_

_Oops._ I lowered myself back to the bed, gently, and tried to extricate myself once more. This time I succeeded, floating away in my original ghostly form as Jamie followed me her eyes. I looked around, then made my way over to the book shelf and dropped myself into a particularly thick tome.

It was a bit more difficult to move, pressed in as it was by the full weight of the other books to either side, but I managed to pull myself—and the book—out from the shelf and float across the room.

_You're uh... not going to drop that on me, are you?_ she asked timidly. _Because if you were, I just wanted to say I'm _really_ sorry about the whole puberty joke, about possessing you, all of the teasing I did over the years... um, I once saw where you had lost your sock and didn't bother to tell you and you threw out the other pair... really sorry about that. And, um..._

_Relax,_ I said. Sent? I certainly wasn't _talking_ as a book. I flipped around so that the cover was facing down towards her and flipped myself open. _How about a story? I can't tell what page I'm showing so you'll sort of have to tell me what it's about._

Jamie's head tilted fractionally to the side. _That's kind of cool,_ she admitted. _And you've probably just saved me from dying of boredom. _Her eyes narrowed. _But I think you're going to put me to sleep with '_Pediatric Neurology'. _Try a different one._

I moved over to the side so I wasn't hovering directly over the bed and released the book, watching it fall to the floor with a faint 'thump'. I felt myself grinning as my face emerged.

By the time the nurse had come back with Jamie's midnight 'breakfast', she bore witness to a pile of research texts dumped carelessly at the foot of the bed and another one pulling itself off of the bookshelf before flying through the air towards her immobile patient.

She did what any other professional would do in that situation. She dropped the food tray and screamed, fleeing the room as fast as she could.

From her bed, Jamie snickered.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**—i try not to care, and i honestly plan to finish this story regardless and i'm not going to hold any chapters 'hostage'... but really, 4 chapters and not a single review since the prologue? either i'm doing something right (and nobody has cause to complain) or i'm doing something dreadfully wrong._

_lemme know your thoughts on the story! things i might need to change? things i'm doing well?_

_theories on where the story is going so i can rub my hands together and go 'yess my pretties, continue thinking those false guessesss' or 'oh crap. i suck at foreshadowing'_

_here's a terrible revelation! i'm an american! my only exposure to oxford english has been harry potter! (and some londonese from a gamer friend on ventrilo) britpick meeeee!_

_r/r? maybe that will work._


	6. Transparency 1-05

**Transparency 1.05**

* * *

I ran down the street at a measured pace, weaving around various pedestrians and other obstacles with practiced ease. It helped that most of the bystanders had already moved to the side, either on their own or having been shoved into position by the man I was chasing.

_Half a block ahead._ Jamie was keeping me abreast with the movements of my target. She flew through the air some fifty metres ahead, shadowing his movements from above. _He's... pulling into the alleyway just past the deli. There's another person in there too, I'm coming in._

I saw the shop in question and dropped my pace slightly so I could focus on unstrapping the nightstick from my belt. As I was preoccupied, I noticed a flash of blue out of the corner of my eye and a sudden chill ran through my body, making me shiver involuntarily.

As soon as I stepped into the alleyway my body threw itself into a crouch, narrowly avoiding the steel pipe my quarry swung towards my head. From there, I flipped my nightstick around so that the short end was level with my fist and leapt forward, burying it into his stomach.

Even as he folded himself over my arm I pushed myself away, using him as a springboard to kick backwards and catch his accomplice in the chin. The newcomer dropped the wooden plank he'd been holding over his head and tripped over his heels, stumbling off-balance. I spun the nightstick around once more and clubbed him over the head with the longer end.

The first attacker, the man I had been chasing originally, had recovered and swung a new weapon at me. I caught the woman's purse and then hopped in place, leaping over a kick aimed at my knees. I twisted my body away, an attempt to wrench the stolen item from his grasp, but he had the strap wrapped around his wrist. I still managed to pull him off balance just enough that I was able to lower my shoulder and bodycheck him.

Tightening my grip on the purse, I took one step backwards and pulled it out from his grasp as he fell. I took one more step, this time planting it on the second thief's arm as he reached for the pipe the first man had dropped. He relaxed his hand in surrender and I lifted my boot away.

I kept a careful grip on my nightstick as I checked the purse for any damage, but the fight had gone out from both men. They groaned on the street as the discomfort of their injuries made themselves known and I frowned.

"Stepping on his arm might have been a bit overboard," I commented, eyeing the growing bruise on the thief's limb.

I felt another chill as Jamie withdrew herself from my body and floated beside me. "So was using the baton to gut-punch the other guy." She grinned. "I'd say the experiment was a success."

I looked over the two thieves dispassionately, still groaning on the ground, then ran a critical eye over myself. No injuries to speak of. Normally engaging in a fight against two others would have left me with at least a few bruises. This time, with Jamie keeping an eye on my surroundings and controlling my movements to respond to sudden changes in the situation, I'd ended the fight much more quickly than I had expected and had avoided at least two surprise attacks.

It still didn't reduce the sheer discomfort that came from having my body move itself without my own conscious thought behind it.

"It shows promise, I guess," I said, holstering my baton and fishing for a pair of plastic cuffs from a pouch. I also grabbed a police transponder and activated it, dropping it onto the ground between the two thieves. "Go see if you can find the lady they snatched this from," I ordered Jamie, "and let her know we've retrieved her belongings. Maybe direct her this way whilst I get these two secured."

...

* * *

"...neh boo..."

I released my hold on the book, letting it fall to the floor and add to the growing pile before I flew back towards the bookshelf. "It's not exactly a library here," I pointed out. "To be honest, I'm surprised this stuff is even here. Maybe they figured to make use of the space?"

_Next book!_ Jamie repeated through our link.

I turned away from the bookshelf and shook my finger. "E-nun-ci-ate," I said with a grin.

Jamie's glare was harsh enough to make me glad we didn't have Blaster classifications. "I... hay... oo," she whispered haltingly.

"Love you too, Little Sister," I replied, turning back to scan the book titles. Reference text... reference text... clinical study report... hmm... "How do you feel about a copy of some student's dissertation?"

_How about you go _outside_ and see if there's anything more palatable?_ She turned her eyes back towards the ceiling and I could tell she was counting the cracks in the tiling above her. _At this point I'd settle for a picture book._

"Huh," I said. "I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Be back in a flash." I immediately turned and flew through the closest wall.

The room adjacent to Jamie's appeared to be an office, although it was hard to tell since all of the lights were off. Not terribly surprising, since it was the dead of the night and most of the workers in the building would have gone home. The next room was another patient's room. The bed contained an older man, fast asleep, looking well into his high fifties or older. I swooped in for a closer look at his patient chart and noticed he was suffering from Alzheimer's. His room appeared to have equipment similar to the ones present in Jamie's, right down to the machines monitoring his vital signs and another set I assumed had been set up to capture his brainwaves.

I shivered. The conditions were close enough that it brought up bad memories. I exited swiftly, this time poking my head out of the door into the hallway.

The corridor was brightly lit, in sharp contrast to our rooms. I noticed there was actually a guard stationed outside of Jamie's room, although he appeared to be passed out in his chair. I double-checked the area around the door for this patient—no guard.

Frowning, I made my way down the hall, careful to keep myself backdropped by the lighting fixtures in the hopes that it'd make it harder to pick out the glow of my ethereal form. To be safe, I also concentrated on dimming myself as much as possible.

My caution seemed to be unnecessary for the moment as I made my way to the far end. I poked my head through the various doorways as I passed them. Most of them were other patient rooms, although a few rooms were offices just as abandoned as the first one. An elevator and a stairwell had been situated at the end of the hallway. A placard identified this as the second floor of the building.

I sank through the floor briefly, passing through layers of heating and ventilation systems before breaking through the ground floor's ceiling. There I found a hallway that was identical to the upper floor in nearly every way. A brief check through the closest doors revealed a few more offices, but down here there were mostly the type of patient rooms physicians used for drop-in patients and routine appointments.

I explored a bit more before I found what I assumed was the main entrance and lobby. There was an open room with chairs lining the walls opposite a front desk walled off from the rest of the room with glass.

By all appearances it looked like an ordinary health clinic. I slumped in disappointment. I'd been partially hoping to find evidence of a secret conspiracy regarding Jamie's treatment—maybe something like an office with an incriminating voice message or scribbled note carelessly left on top of the desk. Of course, I hadn't yet found anything that screamed _manager's office,_ so maybe the idea wasn't a total lost cause. And there was the small matter that Jamie's door apparently warranted a sentry...

I shook my head. Now was not the time for paranoid delusions. I had come down here with a _purpose._ If this was a physician's office, then there _absolutely _had to be...

_Magazines!_ Jamie squealed, spotting the small table in the corner at the same moment I did. _Jackpot!_

I floated towards the table, pleased with my discovery, until a new thought crossed my mind. How was I going to get these back up to the room?

...

* * *

Moving Jamie was somewhat more difficult when she wasn't there to help move the process along. I'd learned that already in the aftermath of the duplicator fight, but trying to use her in a combat situation added several more degrees of complication to my already stressed-out mind.

I'd settled for anchoring her in the sky, out of sight, and simply using her to check my surroundings every so often. This gave me nearly the same amount of awareness of my surroundings, although she wasn't there to point out all of the many details I'd probably missed.

Also, it didn't work very well when my quarry had barricaded themselves indoors.

On the plus side, this was just another regular thief—a shoplifter, in fact. I could probably just call up the authorities right now and keep an eye on the building to make sure the perpetrator didn't leave. Sit back and at least still get a finder's fee for the job.

On the other hand, a capture bounty was worth much more. Even if I didn't need the money quite that badly, I _knew_ I could pull this off. I was just... nervous without the usual fallback in place.

Just as I'd begun to move Jamie into position, I suddenly felt feedback as her avatar began to resist my commands and her presence filled the link once again.

Despite the time constraints, I couldn't help but relax. "You're awfully late. Did you need a daytime snack or something?"

_Hmph,_ she grumbled. _Stupid doctors woke me up just to tell me they were going to put me back to sleep again. Why do they need a kittycat to look into my head and tell them what's going on in there, anyh—Why are you laughing at me?!_

...

* * *

"This exercise is designed to test your mental acuity," the nurse patiently explained. "When I read out the letter, I want you to point to the object whose name begins with that letter, then name the object."

Jamie unsuccessfully tried to shrink beneath her covers. _If I didn't _know _these people were incapable with seeing a reality that didn't fit their worldview, I'd think they were mocking me._

_I can't help you there,_ I sent regretfully. _Apparently living in your head for the last decade does not make me a reliable witness to your state of mind._

"Let's begin," the nurse said with a sort of false cheer. "_'A'_ is for...?"

Jamie uncurled a finger and spoke slowly, carefully. Making sure the nurse could not possibly misunderstand her. "Kill. Me. Now."

The nurse's smile became somewhat brittle when she realized which finger Jamie was using to point with.

...

* * *

"No," Jamie said emphatically.

"Why not?" I jabbed my hand at the creature laying quietly in my palm. "It's a simple-minded creature. It's durable. It has its own self-defense mechanisms! What's wrong with it?"

"What's wrong? It's on tonight's _menu_," she hissed.

I'm positive the crab in my hand would have clicked its claws in offense to that last, if not for the rubber bands wrapped around its pincers. I sighed and dropped it back into its holding tank.

...

* * *

"Er, well, it's been quite some time since I've had to deal with my subjects directly, so please forgive my... ah, _excitement_." Jamie's doctor-scientist smiled nervously as he propped a clipboard against his lap.

Jamie was strong enough to sit up now. Although they'd offered to hold this little interview in the relative comfort of her room, she had insisted on a change of environment. This had resulted in our current location, which—going by the state of disorderliness—appeared to be the man's office. The desk had been piled high with documents of various types. Rather than clean off the surface so that he could place the desk between himself and his guest, the man had decided to sit on the slightly less cushy chair on the opposite whilst Jamie had been parked in the open space between him and the door.

Jamie had been provided with a cheap, mechanical wheelchair, the kind that required the user to have decent upper-body strength in order to propel themselves. As they'd had a nurse escorting her to the office and back, I had taken the opportunity to possess the wheelchair itself.

The benefits were two-fold. I got firsthand experience on how the wheelchair's parts felt when moving around and I was also able to hide from the staff. It seemed they had assumed the same thing the scientists in my world did when I had first demonstrated my powers—that Jamie had to consciously call me forth in order for me to manifest myself; and that I was merely an extension of her psyche. In other words, if I wasn't visible, I wasn't active—'out of sight, out of mind.'

"So, ah, Ms. Shirakawa was it?" the Doctor asked cordially.

"Yes." Jamie lifted her chin to answer. "... Jamie." She was being extremely careful with her word pronunciation. The effort it cost her to do so was astounding, especially with her current level of strength, but she refused to allow herself to backslide when she was making such progress.

"Jamie, then. And how old are you?"

I carefully detached myself from the wheelchair, gliding across the floor until I was behind the Doctor's desk. While she kept him occupied with conversation and observation, I began scanning the desk for any reports they may have had regarding Jamie or her treatments. Given that this meeting had been scheduled in advance, I didn't find it impossible to assume that he'd be brushing up on the pertinent facts before he actually spoke with her.

Jamie blinked. "What year... is it?"

"The current year is twenty-eleven, we're just getting into Spring," he informed her.

She closed her eyes briefly, doing the math in her head. "Nineteen? Unless... my birthday... passed... already."

The Doctor shook his head. "Not yet, according to the records we were provided upon your admittance. I must say, Jamie, I am very impressed by your ability to retain details of your life in the face of your recent disability."

Jamie frowned. "I'm... not... stupid."

I frowned at the pique evident in Jamie's tone. During the time she'd been predominantly active as my ghost, Jamie had always been a cheerful girl, eager to help out. Since she'd woken up, Jamie had been prone to fits of irritability and frustration. Most of it likely came from the fact that her physical body was not nearly as responsive or healthy as she might have wished for herself. Her treatment by the staff certainly didn't help matters, as they seemed to be treating her as the eight-year old she had been when she'd fallen into her coma.

"I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought you were," the Doctor said soothingly. "As a matter of fact, the fact that you were able to learn fairly high-level language skills in a matter of days shows remarkable levels of intelligence. I wonder if you could give me some insight into your thought processes."

To me, Jamie's face clearly showed what she thought of that idea. Either the Doctor missed it completely, or he was ignoring it. I'm not sure which I would have preferred.

_Get a move on, already. _I looked up to find Jamie's eyes land on me briefly before she returned her attention to the Doctor. _I'd rather not stay here any longer than I have to._

"I'm thinking... that you should first... stop treating me like... a child," she breathed.

I returned to my task and began quietly sifting through the stacks of papers, doing my best to ignore the rest of the conversation between the two.

**ooo**

"That... was... exhausting," Jamie complained once we were back in her room. She made no move to protest when the nurse gently lifted her out of the wheelchair and stretched her out along the bed. She switched to our mental link as she settled down. _He just kept trying to psychoanalyze me or something. Asking me questions about what I remembered from the Darkness. How it made me feel being out of there. I honestly didn't know how I should have answered some of the things he asked._

"You wont have to put up with much of that, dear," the nurse assured her, assuming Jamie had been talking to her. "That was a one-time occurrence."

_Well, I couldn't find much,_ I reported. _But from the few things I did see, I think he's mostly on the level. Nothing sinister going on... and I doubt they're going to dissect you._

_Good to know,_ she said dryly. "Leave the... chair."

The nurse took her hand away from the wheelchair's handles. "Are you sure? You won't be needing this for some time."

Jamie gave the nurse one of her patented glares.

"Very well." From the nurse's tone it was clear that she was simply humouring Jamie's request, and Jamie knew it. "You'll find a button next to your pillow, press it if you'd like to request someone to take you outside, or even to help you back into the chair."

"Thanks," Jamie said. She waited until the nurse had left us both alone before she continued the previous conversation. "So..." _So, Mad Scientist theory is out, what does that leave us?_

"Oh, I never said he wasn't mad," I pointed out. "Just that he had no sinister motives. In fact, I'm fairly certain he thinks you're his ticket to the Nobel Prize or something like that. Maybe he thinks you have the key to curing Alzheimer's or something locked away in your head. Advanced brain regeneration and whatnot."

Jamie's mouth twisted into a grimace. "You're kidding," she said. "He had all that written down?"

"Well, not exactly," I admitted. "I didn't find much at all, like I said. Most of what he had on _you_ specifically was primarily background information. Our parents, where we lived, the police reports on the car accident... My theory comes from the fact that: this _is_ a research clinic of some kind; and of the few other patients I did see during my explorations, most of them had a brain sickness of one kind or another."

"Joy."

"Yeah, it's almost a shame we can't really help him in that regard." I floated over to hear and hovered over her chest. "There was one other thing I found, though. There are parahumans in this world. There's even equivalents of the Protectorate, the Suits, the King's Men, the Guild, all of them."

"... Interesting," she said. "Does... that help?"

I shook my head. "Not really. If anything, it means we might be in just as much trouble as we would in _my_ world if the truth ever came out about us. The reason I found out, though, is because he had a list of phone numbers and emails—a contact list to representatives for each organisation. I think he might turn you over to one of them in order to get help for his research."

Jamie made a face. "Yuck, no more labs... for me... thank you very much. I've had... enough with this one."

I shrugged, resigned. "Well, there's not really much we can do about it. You're pretty much healthy in the head, I guess—"

"You... _guess?_"

"—but your body definitely needs rehabilitation before you can become self-sufficient."

_Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Big Brother._ Jamie leaned back against her pillow with a contented smile, deliberately reverting back to our link. _I'm a cape, just as you are. I'm self-sufficient _enough. _I want out._

"Out?" I repeated dumbly.

Her smile grew fractionally wider.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**—sorry for the (slightly) late update. i went to see the Tenors in SF last night. canadians are witty people. in other news: i should have begged for reviews earlier! +_+_

_but... then again, drawing the attention of psycho gecko _is_ a rather frightening prospect..._

_i kid. but seriously i'm happy to hear people are still finding the fic interesting, though a few people did mention things didn't quite mesh well even if 'they got past it'. are there any specific examples (that i can fix and wont break the story completely)? like most people probably assume, the main leads' powers can't really change, but if there are other continuity errors i'd be happy to make adjustments. for the rest, i guess i'll copy what i wrote at the end of _looking glass:  
_just consider this an AU that isn't really an AU because there are already AU's because of the whole 'WORMhole' and..._ i guess _earths aleph through taw_

_plot. i suppose i cant realistically expect comments on the plot so far when it's still getting off the ground... i will say i plan for 3 arcs to mirror worm itself a bit, titled _Transparency_, _Parallax_, and _Reflection_. let's see what anyone can pull from that._

_another thing that came up is formatting in the narrative. i generally try to avoid putting in a 'key' but after going over my own internal rules i found they were slightly convoluted... but if it helps:_

* * *

"Dialogue" — _spoken out loud. if it's in double quotation marks, it means an outsider could conceivably eavesdrop. james speaks to jamie in this manner quite often, regardless of which form he's in. apparently he's fine with people thinking he talks to himself._

_"Dialogue" — fully italicized sentences in double-quotes are usually transmissions, usually via radio/transceivers. but watch out, it could also mean the entire thing is emphasised, a sign of a freak-out or sarcastic delivery_

_Thoughts — fully italicized sentences indicate thoughts or communications via 'mental link'. will this make it hard to determine if jamie is talking to james or if he's just having an internal monologue? yes. confused? good. hint? maybe. maybe not. bwa. ha. ha. ha._

_Partially _italicized phrases — _emphasis._ _i won't lie, i stress words probably more often than i should. an italicized word or phrase in the middle of a normally-formatted sentence means emphasis on that particular word or phrase. the _reverse_ is also true._

_hope you enjoy! still r/r if you'd like_


	7. Transparency 1-06

**Transparency 1.06**

* * *

"You've been sleeping later," Pop commented as I stepped downstairs. "Are you well?"

"I'm okay," I replied even as I yawned, belying my own statement. "Just some cape stuff," I said, hoping that would be enough to keep him from prying too far.

It seemed to work, as he dropped the subject without any further comment. With a perfunctory nod, he directed me towards the dining hall.

I grimaced and grabbed a glass of water first, downing it in several large gulps before I poked my head out to find a busy, crowded room—dinner was served, it would seem.

I had spent the last few days sleeping and working later and later into the evenings, attempting to shift my sleep schedule—the period of time where I was active in Jamie's world—so that I could support her during the day, rather than in the middle of the night like I usually did.

Our reasoning was simple, we were planning a jailbreak of sorts. Several forays into the outside world had revealed the continuous presence of a security guard patrolling the hallways of the hospital/laboratory during the night, but there was no such presence during the day, when the place was busy with doctors and nurses. Although the risk of running into _someone_ would have been higher during the day, we had decided that it would be a better chance than trying to sneak past a possibly armed guard specifically looking for suspicious movements into and out of the building.

Towards that end, Jamie needed help moving around during her escape, which meant that I needed to be in _her_ world during that time period, rather than in mine—hence my efforts to alter my sleep schedule by close to ten or twelve hours.

It did make my life somewhat difficult here. As evidenced by my pop's comments, my parents had been struggling slightly with handling the larger crowds without my assistance. My cape work had suffered as well, although I generally picked up the odd bounty here and there. One might ordinarily think that more crimes occur at night, but for the most part it seemed like thieves and criminals found more success in blending in with crowded streets rather than the darkness.

My sudden schedule change had prompted a confused query from Flurry, a text message which had me smiling fondly that my former team leader was still keeping tabs on me—even as I worried about what I could tell her without giving away my secrets.

Jamie was also working towards shifting her own sleeping patterns—the end result being that we weren't in sync with each other any longer and I was forced to practise utilising her inert avatar more often than I would have liked. I presumed she had much the same problems that I did on that front, but if she did she made no mention of it to me.

One bright news that gave us both hope was the discovery that we were still in the same city. The clinic on her end had no counterpart in my world—instead it was a disused building currently open to developers—but much of the surrounding area was identical, which gave us hope as to a possible place we could escape to.

Jamie had treasured her freedom as an astral projection, as a ghost. The discovery that she was bedridden, even confined to a single building, had been too much to bear for her. She wanted her freedom back, at any cost, and I was willing to do whatever it took to let her achieve that.

...

* * *

The past few weeks had seen Jamie burning through her physical reserves each and every day in an attempt to force her body back into some semblance of normality. The results clearly showed; where before she had barely been able to sit up on her own, she could now support her upper body with just her arms and had gained some mobility with her legs. She still wasn't able to support her full weight yet, much less walk, but as time had passed and her rate of improvement had plateaued she had decided to put her plan into motion sooner rather than later.

While Jamie had been running through her protracted exercise routines, I had been experimenting with my newfound powers—attempting to determine how much I could manipulate objects with it.

I could force into motion any objects that had been designed to move around with no more effort than walking. This included not only the wheelchair itself but also nearly every piece of furniture in Jamie's room, each of which had casters mounted under their legs in order for the room to be reorganized into whatever configuration the staff needed it to be.

Unfortunately most of them were too heavy for me to simply lift into the air like I could with books and other small objects. Every attempt I'd made simply ejected me from the objects as I floated into the air without it. This discovery had discouraged Jamie somewhat—apparently her Plan A for leaving the hospital/laboratory was to have me simply levitate the bed out from the second story window and fly off into the sunset.

I couldn't help her out on that front, but there was plenty else I could do. My forays out into the outside world around us had allowed me to discover that we weren't too far from a clothing boutique. Over the course of the week they had suffered a mysterious series of thefts. Unfortunately, security footage showed no signs of intrusion or the perpetrator, although they did capture the clothes in question seemingly walking themselves out the door.

I felt guilty about that, but we had a short time frame and an even shorter list of options. I'd hoped the boutique wouldn't be my sole target for the shoplifting, but without any other alternatives within my tether range I couldn't 'spread out' the damages between other outlets and stores. I did try to focus on relatively cheaper, more utilitarian clothing, with a secondary emphasis on patterns or colors that wouldn't easily stand out on their own.

The _really_ awkward part was helping Jamie get dressed in the appropriated outfit. She did as much as she could on her own, but the relative weakness in her limbs made certain tasks extremely difficult and time-consuming. Let's just say there was a certain amount of fumbling and cursing involved and leave it at that.

**ooo**

_Ready?_ I sent to Jamie, breaking from my usual habit of vocalizing all of my communications whenever possible.

Jamie lifted her arms briefly, testing the fit of the blouse I'd filched for her and her limited range of motion. She lowered her arms and gave me a nod, prompting me to possess the wheelchair and move to her bedside.

I kept the wheelchair from moving as Jamie crawled across her bed and unceremoniously dumped herself head-first into the seat. There was another few moments of flailing limbs as she struggled to orient herself into the proper sitting position, her legs dragging themselves weakly as she settled down.

The first task was to make sure that the hallway outside was free of any witnesses. A quick peek through the door let me know that Jamie's doorway lacked the sentry I'd noticed several nights ago. Either it had been just a simple night guard who'd happened to park themselves there by chance, or they had been counting too heavily on the fact that she tended to be completely passed out during the daytime.

_The door,_ she sent to me, impatience in her tone.

_The lock,_ I corrected her as my inspection of the door itself revealed that the lock had been engaged. It was a relatively standard key-lock; I knew enough about them to have an idea of how they worked, though I'd never tried to break one until now. Fourteen thin rods were stacked together in seven different columns within the mechanism. Each rod was cut to a different height and pressed against a spring which held them against the bottom of the keyhole. Each column would have to be individually raised so that each pair of rods had their shear points lined up with the rotating plug that handled the lock itself.

I had been worried I wouldn't possess the fine control needed to manipulate each column of pins individually long enough to engage the tumbler. It seemed that my fear had been premature—despite the various mechanisms involved in the lock, my awareness seemed to spread throughout the lock, and even the door, as part of a greater whole. I was able to work the lock and the door handle almost by simply thinking it.

_Ta-da~_ I proclaimed, swinging the door open with a flourish. The grand gesture was lost on my audience, however, as I realized I had no hands to flourish with.

Jamie, a determined expression on her face, merely settled her hands on the wheelchair's hand-rims and gave them an experimental shove. She slowly made her way past the threshold and I closed the door after her, making sure to relock the door as I did so. _Let them stew on that,_ I thought happily. _The classic locked room scenario._

_I'm not dead, though,_ Jamie pointed out. There was a faint strain in her mental voice and I noticed her arms were already trembling with muscle fatigue.

_Details, details,_ I commented as I repossessed the wheelchair and began to propel it forward, allowing her to relax. _Keep your hands on the rims,_ I reminded her, casting my awareness out nervously. _Gotta keep up appearances._

The short trip was nerve-wracking. The hallway had never seemed this long on my previous sojourns in the nights of past. Every door we passed made me wonder if _this_ would be the one where a doctor or nurse decided to step outside after checking on the patient within. Every door made me nervously expect a suspicious query as to what we were up to.

_This is a lot harder than I thought it'd be,_ Jamie complained, rubbing her arms briefly before dropping them back over the armrests. I could tell she was feeling just as anxious about this whole affair as I was, but she was trying to distract herself by focusing on her physical aches. _I can't wait until I've healed enough to walk again._

It was times like this that I wished we weren't so attuned with each other. Both of us could feel each other's worry and those emotions were like a feedback loop, building up against each other and kicking our collective anxiety up several notches.

It finally happened just as we were making our final approach to the elevator. As we passed the last room before the cross-corridor, the door opened and a nurse paused in the threshold, blinking owlishly at the wheelchair she'd nearly bumped into.

"Oh! Hullo!" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

It was _almost_ a relief to have a focus for our pent-up energy, but part of me felt the sudden need to keep anyone from sounding the alarm about our escape. I disconnected from the wheelchair and dove straight for the nurse, plowing straight through her chest before she could even register my presence.

Even as I felt a faint chill from my passage, the nurse gasped in surprise and I knew our brief interaction had not resulted in the outcome I'd desired—she was still conscious. I felt a surge of irritation and I continued into the door behind her. I quickly took control over the heavy wooden door and slammed it shut, bludgeoning the stunned nurse across her back. The woman was catapulted forward, her head bouncing off the frame of Jamie's wheelchair as she collapsed into a boneless heap on the ground.

I slowly extracted myself from the door, staring down at the woman on the floor in horror. She was still breathing—albeit rather fitfully—yet somehow the knowledge that I had _not_ killed her did not relieve me in the slightest.

"I didn't mean to do that..." I whispered, too stricken to remember to keep my voice from coming out. I raised my head to look at Jamie, my eyes pleading for her to understand that I hadn't _meant_ to assault the caregiver. "It... just sort of happened."

Jamie's expression was cold as she met my gaze. Her eyes flickered briefly towards the unconscious nurse before rising back to me. "She would have held us up," she said as if to reassure me. "Delayed us long enough for others to come and stop us." She pointedly turned to face the elevators, looking away from me. "C'mon, we have no time left to waste."

Still feeling numb from my recent actions, I dived back into the wheelchair and propelled us to safety.

**ooo**

My mind was still reeling from the sudden violence I had inflicted on an innocent bystander. I could only barely recall minor details of our escape. Jamie had simply boarded the elevator and arrived at the ground-floor clinic, passing through it as if she were a regular patient finishing their scheduled appointment. I'd often heard that confidence can do wonders in allowing people access to locations they aren't ordinarily permitted, but this had been the first time I'd seen it actually put to use.

I only partially remembered moving across the streets and roads through the town—a place that was identical to my own home in nearly every aspect. Certain shops had different store fronts or owners in places, but for the most part it gave us complete confidence in our navigation, reinforcing the_ I-am-_definitely_-not-a-tourist-or-a-lost-escapee_ vibe that Jamie was cultivating.

Our pace was not fast. Despite the fact that our escape would have to be noticed eventually and the possibility of pursuit was rather high, this little outing was as much an opportunity for Jamie to see our hometown with her own eyes, from a ground perspective rather than her usual aerial one.

The fog in my mind slowly lifted away as I took in the highly populated streets of the commercial district. The crowds of tourists meandering through the many vendors and shops as we went through the town gates. We rolled past a lookout overlooking the castle ruins as we headed north and made our way across the bridge crossing the river. The urban buildings gave way to hills and fields as we zig-zagged across the residential town.

Darkness was falling just as we rolled down a particular road just outside the town-proper. The pavement was somewhat cracked and the sidewalks were uneven, but the buildings along the street had recently-applied coats of paint and brilliant signs displaying their logos and names.

I recognized the butcher shop at the corner, with the roasted ducks hanging on racks just behind the storefront window and Old Man Cheung puttering behind the counter as he helped a customer. Next to the meat shop was a general store and sweet shop combination, selling imported candies and a range of flavored tea and milk-tea mixes. At the far end of the block was the random souvenir shop that sold everything from Chinese-made knockoff toys to the latest J-, K-, and C-pop related merchandise, mostly posters of the latest pretty-boys and idols to grace the various rankings.

But despite the familiar sights and bright lights, the moment I had realized just where we were I'd had my eyes focused on the building between the sweet shop and the general store. The building where I had spent much of my childhood, in a different life. The brilliant pink and yellow sign that proclaimed this to be a bakery.

My parents didn't run a bakery.

Jamie said nothing for several long minutes as she took in the sight. Unlike before, when she had first found out about her emancipation, she wasn't emoting internally. She wasn't silently raging and screaming in a place where only I could hear her. Rather, she felt resigned, as if she hadn't allowed herself to imagine anything but the worst-case scenario and discovered that she had not been pleasantly surprised.

"Hey, James?" she said quietly, not turning her head away from the building. "What do I do now?"

I extracted myself from the wheelchair and settled myself in the air just above her shoulder. I had no idea how I could answer, so I said nothing.

"Heh," she chuckled. "We didn't exactly plan this through, did we? All this time focused on figuring out where we were, how we were going to escape... and we didn't even decide on where we should go afterwards?"

I heard her inhale sharply with her nose, then release a quavering breath from her mouth. "We didn't even bring an overcoat, did we?" she asked with sharp bark of mocking laughter. She shivered briefly, tucking her head against her chest and wrapping her arms around herself.

"I guess not," I said quietly. My mind was racing, trying to figure out where we could possibly take shelter. A large problem was that we had no money. We could possibly try going door to door around the many houses in the hopes that a family would feel sorry enough for the sickly-looking girl to take her in, but that might draw attention from the very people we were trying to escape.

Both of us were so completely lost in thought and our self-defeating mood. It probably explained how I completely missed all signs of the person approaching us. It was the scrape of shoes against the pavement that made both of our heads suddenly snap up to find a startled-looking woman standing in front of us. She was holding a plastic bag in her hands with the bakery's logo printed on it, suggesting she had just been leaving the store when she had spotted the two of us loitering at the street corner.

The two of us... I suddenly gulped and shifted my attention to her face. Sure enough, her attention was focused directly on me, her eyes wide with surprise. I slowly edged backwards, hoping to perhaps slide myself back into the wheelchair, but gave up as I noticed her tracking me.

Jamie had also noticed where the woman's attention was and made a small noise to draw it towards herself. "Um, hi?"

"Hullo!" the woman cheerfully responded. It was hard to be certain in the fading light, but she appeared to have light-brown hair falling past her shoulders, tied into twin braids just behind her neck. She looked to be in her late teens or early adulthood, just barely younger than me, although she was wearing the uniform from one of the local schools. She reached up with her free hand to adjust a pair of round glasses across her nose as she leaned in to stare at me. "Is that a hologram?"

I jumped at the possible excuse, doing my best to make any motions simplistic and repetitive. Staying completely still was beyond me.

"Um... yes?" Jamie said nervously. She glanced towards me briefly before she stretched out her arms to wheel herself backwards, except the newcomer simply followed along, still leaning across her to peer more closely at me.

"Wicked..." the girl breathed. "It looks so... _real_."

This... couldn't be right. I knew I wasn't _that_ great of an actor, shouldn't she have been a tad more suspicious? As I focused closely on her face, trying to find some sign of duplicity, I noticed something about her facial features that struck a chord in my memories.

"Err, if you don't mind," Jamie snapped out, "but I'm trying to have a breakdown here."

"Oh?" The girl lifted her head to appraise Jamie, then turned around to see what she'd been looking at earlier. "Oh! You mean that one Japanese restaurant? Yeah, I think the owners went out of business sometime last year. I miss that place too... It had the best sushi..." She sighed and hefted her plastic bag. "The bakery isn't bad though."

Or maybe she was an airhead. That could have been another explanation for jumping to the oddest conclusions I had ever seen, both for my presence and Jamie's current state of despair.

The smells from the bag wafted through the air and suddenly a low rumbled filled the air. Heads turned to find Jamie blushing a furious scarlet as she looked away in embarrassment.

The girl grinned, "Hungry? Well, too bad, this one's mine. I bought it with my own money!" She stood up straight and clasped the bag to her chest defensively. She paused and looked around for a brief moment before looking at Jamie once more. "Say, where's your ride?"

"I don't think I could handle solid foods anyhow," Jamie grumbled as the other girl dropped her non sequitur. She blinked as her train of thought finally caught up to what the other girl had said. "What?"

"Your ride home? Or are you out here all by yourself? Do you live far from here?"

"I, ah, I don't... have a home anymore," Jamie said quietly. She narrowed her eyes as she regarded the other girl. "Why?"

The girl seemed to take the sudden glare in stride, swinging the bag behind her back and rocking on her heels. "We~ell, if you're kinda homeless and are hungry, I know a place where you can stay... for a few nights at least if you wanted to." She grinned, "I'll even put in a good word for you with the owner, my treat!"

"Why?" Jamie repeated, a definite note of suspicion in her voice.

"Cuz I want to," the other girl kept smiling. She stopped rocking back and forth and extended one hand out. "Name's Karen," she introduced herself.

_We could go,_ I offered my own opinion. _Our backup plan was to find _some_ sort of shelter, after all. If nothing else, at least you'd be fed and rested for the eventual backstab, if it comes to that. Besides, there's something about her that seems—I don't know—familiar._

_You assume she'll actually feed me. _Jamie stared at the hand warily for several moments, until her stomach grumbled in protest again. She sighed and grasped Karen's hand, pumping it once before letting go. "Jamie."

The streetlamps lit up, the light reflecting off of Karen's glasses and hiding her eyes briefly as her smile grew. "Great!" she exclaimed. Without any further prompting she took a long step and a short hop to place herself behind Jamie's wheelchair, grabbing the handles and spinning her around to face the other way down the street.

"Hey!" Jamie shouted in surprise, even as I belatedly dived back into the wheelchair so I could keep up without showing myself.

Karen paid no heed to her protests, instead heading off in a brisk walk that took her down the street. She chattered constantly, not seeming to care about Jamie's reticence. She talked about her school, referencing names and events we had absolutely no knowledge of, yet seemed to be sources of great amusement for herself. She talked about her family, mostly about an older sister who was the bestest in the world and apparently let her get away with _anything_. There were curiously few mentions of her own parents.

The constant stream of words eventually formed a comfortable background noise, keeping just enough of our attention to distract the both of us from our misery over Jamie's abandonment. The guilt that her hospital fees had apparently driven her parents into a state where her father was unable to continue his restaurant. The renewed reminder that she had no other people in this world aside from myself, who probably didn't count.

When our pace finally slowed and Karen pulled Jamie to a stop, we found ourselves in front of an aged but well-kept house in a relatively nice neighborhood. Despite the late hour Karen had no problems with marching up to the front door and banging on it loudly.

"Hey, Sunny!" she shouted through the door. "I brought some guests over! How's the gruel for tonight?!"

I saw a light flicker to life through the door's windows and the sound of a lock being disengaged. As the door opened, a tall woman stood in the threshold, slapping a towel against her hands as she gave a level stare at the shorter girl. "Karen," she chided. "_Another_ one?"

The voice of the woman—Sunny—also seemed remarkably familiar to me, annoyingly so. I felt Jamie's attention slide towards me for a moment before she began her own appraising look, although Sunny was backlit from the lights inside the house and we couldn't make out her features.

"Yep!" I could somehow _hear_ Karen's ubiquitous grin as she answered the woman. "Found her in front of the bakery where the 'White River' Restaurant used to be. Seemed like she hadn't been there in at least a year, didn't even know it closed!" She turned a pitying gaze back towards Jamie, ignoring how the wheelchair-bound girl bristled at the look.

Sunny sighed and moved out of the way, allowing Karen to skip inside. "Please, feel free to enjoy our hospitality if you wish. Despite what my younger sister may have told you, it is your own choice to partake or not, at your own discretion."

That particular way of speaking, almost excessively formal... without any prompting I propelled the wheelchair forward where I could get inside and get a closer look at Sunny. Jamie bit back a surprised yelp as she pantomimed working the wheel rims in order to keep up appearances.

"Um." Jamie spoke timidly, as if not sure how to take in this strange development. "Thank you for having us—me," she said, crossing the threshold and spinning around to face our host. I felt a shiver of shock run through her body, matching the one that ran through mine as we were able to see the face of our host.

"It is no problem at all," an unmasked Flurry assured her.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**__—this chapter marks the end of the Transparency arc, although i'm thinking of tossing in an interlude here... i'm just trying to figure out what character i might want to use. also i'm taking summer classes so updates will most likely be slowing down from this point._

_i got some more reviews, yay! and some constructive feedback, double yay! let's see how well i can address any of these... (apologies in advance for the relatively long author's notes)_

_i like that people seem to be favorably comparing this to worm, at least in the sense that it doesn't seem like the entire universe is out to get our protagonists. i generally do not like grim-dark-type stories, yet for some reason i was still able to tolerate and even enjoy Worm. i still dno why, especially after reading everything that has happened. shrug?_

_**does wildbow review my work?**__ no. when i wrote _'Looking Glass' _i did send my first draft to him for a quick run through (some changes were made, for example: looking glass used to be set in california's bay area before it was pointed out the Protectorate would _never _allow some of the things Glass does, such as his school), but as he pointed out in a few chapter comments, any time he spends _reading _is time he is not spending _writing_. i am personally willing to put up with my own story being so far afield of canon if it means more actual Worm._

_**things like powers and the setting not meshing with canon**__. mostly intentional and yet not. the idea of a cross-universe-counterpart thing has been bouncing in my head for several years, but i find i have more trouble creating a setting than i do a character idea, so i was never able to think of a proper way to apply it. worm's superpowers and in-setting parallel universes just seemed to jump at me, even if it still wasn't a perfect fit. _

_**street superhero dynamic**_**. **_while i still made some effort to make it recognizeably Worm, by placing the setting across the pond i'd hoped to give a different sort of dynamic to the cape scene—hence the sort of bounty hunter-esque behavior of Glass and his team— even if it may not be what wildbow intended for the the UK (although india's and china's cape scenes are _vastly_ different than anything i could have imagined as well, who knows, maybe he'll reference my method? *crosses fingers*) one of the other things that was implied in wildbow's feedback was the relative lack of major cape organisations in the UK, with the Suits and the King's Men being some of the notable exceptions_

_**James/Jamie don't seem... quite right in the head**__. this is true._

_**James is a boring protagonist**__. this... is also true. unfortunately it's also unintentional. as a reviewer pointed out, by trying to copy the format of Worm, i made the POV in the first person, except stream of thought-narration does not seem to be one of my stronger points. by forcing a relatively normal narration onto a point-of-view, the result is that James comes out a bit... flat. this leaves me with a conundrum of trying to revise what i've written already, change it in future updates, or find a way to handwave/explain it away. as to the part where he seems completely defined by his relationship with Jamie... yes? hm... i wonder if i can do something with that..._

_**use (or lack of) local British slang and colloquialisms**__. hoo boy, this is where i wrote myself into a corner. as i mentioned above, i had originally planned to set this in america, but in my attempt to justify the 'changes' i had made to the setting i moved it over to the UK. as per previous author's notes, __**i am not british.**__ this creates something of a problem, while i can watch my spelling and replace certain words with their british counterparts, i don't know the proper use of common phrases and slang._

_(i have a tendency to ninja-edit previous writings if i've noticed significant errors within the first few weeks; if anyone paid attention to _Looking Glass_ you might have noticed me trying to write 'wristwatch' as 'kettle', failing miserably and simply changing it back to the more common name)_

_unfortunately i don't use a beta and most of my british knowledge comes from listening to a british gamer friend on skype who may or may not be speaking properly since we usually play together in the dead of the night for her. my londonese is lacking. i apologize. apologise. gdi._

_**timeline in relation to Worm**__. Worm seems to be set NextSundayAD or ThePresentDay (trope those. ruin your life. go ahead, i'll wait) to that end i played around with my own timeline a bit to work things out._

_James and Jamie were born in late 1991; their mutual accident/trigger event happened in 1999, prior to Leviathan's attack on Kyushu; _Looking Glass_ takes place around 2006-2007 (undecided, not important); the Endbringer at Eyjafjallajökull refers to the Icelandic volcanic eruptions early 2010 that brought air traffic in Europe to a near-standstill for several months (i figured to blame it on Behemoth, shrug?); current setting is Spring 2011 (specific time in relation to Worm i'll put at the end of the story, but needless to say James and Jamie will _not_ be running into any Undersiders... i think.)_

_**the Smurf is the only telepath? (refers to a side line 1.04)**__ in Worm's Agitation 3.11, during the bank robbery where Tt is explaining her powers to Gg. take it with a grain of salt since it _is_ Tt engaging in some mindscrew, but the fact that Gg seems to follow suggests that it is true, or at least that it's the widely disseminated theory_


	8. Interlude 1 (Volley)

**Interlude 1**

* * *

Power.

The rate at which energy is transferred to perform work, or a measure of force capable of being applied by an individual or group.

The life of a Tinker was often one of mutual interdependency. Some of them were visionary geniuses, capable of incredible breakthroughs in design and functionality within their specialities. Others were masters at scrounging and engineering, capable of creating fully-functional modern day conveniences using nothing more than boxes of scraps—and if rumours were to be believed—while in caves, even.

Some could create impossible technologies: directed energy weapons, anti-gravity drives, powered armour, powered _mecha_, advanced life-support systems, zero-emission motors, the list went on and on. For Tinkers, the possibilities were endless.

But every Tinker also required two basic needs that—individually—none could possibly possess enough of: time and resources. While a Tinker could diagram an entire blueprint on their own—and indeed, most did—there were times when it was just faster to collaborate with others and have each one focus on a particular area where they excelled at.

Most Tinkers joined large organisations, nationally-sponsored societies that gave them all the support-networking and resources they could ever wish for, so long that everything they created belonged to the organisation. Others worked alone, but that was the more difficult path by far. Resources were scarce and much of their valuable time was spent fending off advances from paramilitary groups and villain teams—or even hero teams. A few reached out to an unofficial support network of sorts, trading favors and minor designs with each other. Designing, negotiating, collaborating—almost all of their free time was devoted to their work.

Everything Pete did was based on the application of power in some way, shape, or form. Most of his energy and time was spent tracking down designs compatible with his own and figuring out which he could manage with his available resources. His workshop was where he put together his projects. They weren't his inventions, they were designs he had worked hard to weasel, trade, bargain, or outright copy from the other gadgeteer geniuses he associated with. Nearly all of the money he earned from his cape work went into supplies: precious metals, plastics, fabrication machines, spare parts, or raw materials. He worked nearly every waking moment he wasn't out on the job.

His only tradeable commodity was licensing out relatively low-quality designs to his sole creations. He literally traded away power to other Tinkers—high-capacity power cells and ultra-efficient capacitors. He saved other Tinkers valuable space and weight in their own designs and earned a modest fee even for his export-quality products. Naturally he kept the best, most efficient designs for himself. In this way, he kept himself valuable to others in his network, trading up his improved designs as soon as he'd made something even better. He wasn't naive enough to think all of his clients were other heroes or rogues. By knowing the yield of and maximum capacity of his work, he could build up a database of his repeat customers and extrapolate possible uses for his power cells. Every so often he obtained prime blackmail material if he ever found his units being used for... extralegal purposes. In return he received the dumbed-down versions of other Tinkers' works: heads-up displays and software, a form of liquid armour plating, collapsible machinery, and—his personal favorite—comprehensive designs for an electromagnetic projectile system.

Putting it all together had taken some time—time that had been well-spent, in his opinion. The end result had been a lightweight but highly impact-resistant bodysuit. Outfitted with a GPS receiver, wind and temperature sensors, and a built-in computer system he had been able to kludge together his own fire-control system and fit it into a helmet and small backpack. Of course, what a Tinker considered a kludge would still be the stuff an ordinary engineer could only dream of.

Electromagnetic launching systems usually required heavy generators and power supplies to provide the necessary charge to launch objects. This normally limited their field applications to large, turret-mounted structures on large trucks or ships. With his own power cells and the collapsible designs he'd appropriated, Pete was capable of building _hand-held railguns_. For the sake of nonlethal weaponry, he usually applied them at their lowest settings, aiming them towards the sky and using them as mobile artillery. If he had the mind to, he could have applied a _great_ deal of force rather _directly _to a single target at any time he wished.

It was unfortunate that the one time he'd been given free reign to utilise his most powerful designs... had been against the one opponent that could nullify it or literally use that destructive force against him. He had been extremely lucky to have survived the attack that had claimed his legs. Luckily he had decided to launch his strike from a location perpendicular to Behemoth's path. Only his distance from the front-lines had kept him alive as the Endbringer had marched off into the distance, leaving Pete unable to move, counting the minutes it took for help to arrive and evacuate him to the off-site triage area.

Pete's fingers stilled on his keyboard as he leaned back in his chair, stretching out his back and neck briefly. He swiveled around to glance at the far wall, filled with shelves upon shelves of batteries. His backshot waterwheel was hooked up to a generator of his own design, one that had a near-perfect conversion of the rotational forces into electrical energy. Were it just that, it still wouldn't have been enough to power even a fraction of the energy he consumed on a daily basis. However his workshop was surrounded by hills and he'd long had discreet wind-powered generators set up around the various peaks. He'd considered solar power at one point, but... well... not bloody likely. Maybe if he ever relocated.

With his full setup, he had a net gain of several kilojoules even on an average working day. On days where he'd been out on patrol or taking a break, the amount stored was much, much greater. After so much time active, even if he decoupled all of his generators now the energy stored in those tanks would last him _years_.

As he swiveled around to face his computer screens again, he noticed an icon in the corner flashing for his attention, an incoming communication. He did a quick check of the workshop's external cameras and sensor net to ensure nobody was nearby before he stabbed a button on his keyboard.

"Peter's Hardware Wizardry, how may I help you?" he said in a polite, but bored-sounding tone.

_"Volley,"_ the voice was crisp, no-nonsense, and clearly not taken in by his attempt at misdirection. _"I thought I was calling your personal number, not the one you give out for your public persona."_

"And hello to you too, Boss-lady," Pete replied, dropping his affected tone. "Both numbers go to the same place anyhow, I just like keeping up the habit."

_"Flurry,"_ the voice corrected him. _"This call may not be secure and—"_

"—and you want to make sure there are no evil eavesdroppers tapping in on our communications, not secure, yada yada... I'm not in costume. Hi, I'm Pete. Who are you?"

_"Volley... "_ Flurry sounded somewhat exasperated.

"Fine... " Volley rolled his eyes, even though the action was wasted over the call. "What can I do for you, _Flurry?"_

_"How are your legs?"_ Flurry asked politely.

"How's the arm?" Volley replied flatly.

There was a moment of silence from the line, then the sound of a sigh. _"Very well, I wanted to ask you about Looking Glass."_

"I saw him the other day," Volley replied. "Seemed fine. Seemed a bit worried about _you_, actually."

_"Was J with him?"_ Flurry asked, ignoring the comment regarding her own well-being._  
_

Volley hesitated briefly. "Um, isn't J _always_ with him?"

_"Roughly six weeks ago I ran into Looking Glass involved in a solo confrontation with an unknown parahuman," _Flurry explained. _"The unknown was captured but J was... incapacitated somehow. She was, for lack of a better term, empty. Glass appeared to have suffered some form of psychological trauma at the same time, either from the backlash of whatever attack it was or from seeing her in that state."_

"Like I said, he seemed fine. _She_ seemed fine, too." Volley shrugged. "She gave me quite an earful about my injuries, in fact. Why the sudden concern?"

_"I have been thinking about the nature of his power. There are too many minor things that do not seem to make sense to me."_

"Such as?"

_"Their interactions with each other. When he first introduced himself to us, I assumed J was a puppet of some sort. However, the way she acts around him is... unusual... for a single mind controlling two different bodies."_

"J is certainly a somewhat free-spirited girl," Volley agreed.

_"There have been times when they are focused on two completely different activities, yet neither one's concentration seems to fall even with the complexity of whatever task the other is engaged in."_

He shrugged, again despite her not being able to see the motion. "What can I say? Powers tend to be weird. Master-class capes tend to be weirder. Maybe he can just multitask _very_ well. Or maybe his power gave a split-personality some extra _oomph_."

_"You believe it to be a psychological phenomenon?"_

"You don't?"

_"An... alternate possibility... had occurred to me." _Flurry admitted. She was silent for several moments and Volley could easily imagine her frowning, her expression shifting minutely as she struggled to put her thoughts into words. _"I am aware of your... voyeuristic habits, Volley."_

Volley scoffed, "It's called _researching,_ Sunshine. And everything I look up is a matter of public record. It's just not normally so... accessible to the public at large."

_"Do _not_ call me that,"_ she said, her voice chilly. _"But you have proven my point. Would you happen to know details regarding Glass' family?"_

"Well, since he was nice enough to bring us to his _family restaurant_ that one time, it wasn't too hard at all to find out about him. Anything specific that wont get me in serious trouble?"

_"... Does he, or did he have a sister?"_ Volley glanced at his screen briefly to check the connection quality. Flurry's voice had seemed to drop into an odd tone near the end of that sentence...

"Hm... " He swiveled towards the next screen over and brought up what he liked to call his little rolodex program. After a brief overview... "Nope. Parents from Kyushu, Japan, but he was born here. No mention of any siblings, older or younger. He was in a car accident several years back, but only one person was hospitalised—him. He was registered as a parahuman rogue about a month later—I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that—and then he vanished from any official notice until he joined up with us and re-registered as an 'unaffiliated' hero."

_"... You picked up all of that from a restaurant name?"_

"I'm a curious sort of guy, I like finding out things about my friends. Just like I know _you_ had a trip to York several years back and—"

_"You will stop right there,"_ Flurry abruptly ordered him. _"And you will _never_ call me Sunshine ever again... or else. Have I made myself clear?"_

"Technically, you aren't really my boss anymore, Boss-lady," Volley shrugged. "You kicked me out."

There was a sound that may have been burst of static or Flurry attempting to crush her phone, he wasn't sure. _"I would... consider it a personal favor if you dropped that subject."_

"Sure, sure."

Flurry was contemplative when she spoke up next. _"You have become remarkably abrasive since we last met."_

Now it was Volley's time to pause. "I made a promise with Wu," he said quietly. "That I'd be the one to drive you all insane in his absence. I don't think he _quite_ anticipated this scenario, but..."

_"I see. Is there _anything_ else you can tell me about J?"_

"Hmm... Glass did mention she was curious about... walking. He was here asking about prosthetics."

_"Why would he need prosthetics for an astral projection that cannot interact with material objects?"_

Volley shrugged. "Beats me. Glass hasn't really gotten onto my bad side... yet. I haven't really been digging too deeply into his past. I still don't really see a need to."

_"Yet you looked into mine?"_

"Every employee needs to have dirt on their boss."

_"I thought I was no longer your boss."_

"Details, details..."

Another few moments of quiet.

_"I would consider it another personal favor if you could look into it somehow."_

Volley grinned. "I make no promises."

_"But you will try?"_

"Sure, I've been needing a hobby since I seem to be out of a job." He couldn't help the accusatory tone that leaked into his voice.

Flurry's voice was quiet, pained. _"... For what it's worth, I regret letting you go. All of you. It's just that—"_

"I know. I'll keep in touch, Flurry." Volley tapped another key before she could reply and then leaned back heavily in his seat, his face impassive as he let memories wash over him. After a few moments of contemplation, he smiled once again.

Having a marker to call on another parahuman was always a good thing, even if Flurry wasn't the strongest cape he knew. She was still an intelligent woman and highly principled, both were qualities that could be exploited to great effect if utilised properly. Who knows, maybe he'd find something interesting about James and Jamie while he was at it. Two—or three—for the price of one.

Power wasn't just being able to punch holes into concrete or energising weapons of mass destruction. Sometimes power was being the one person everyone had to turn to for help, being the one most able to enable a change or an action.

Sometimes power was simply the ability of a person to exercise influence and/or control over others.

**ooo**


	9. Parallax 2-01

**Parallax 2.01**

* * *

_"So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view" —Alec Guinness_

* * *

"So what do you think?" I sat with my legs hanging over the edge of a building in the downtown area. The wind was much stronger at this elevation, the air was much colder at night, so I had wrapped my scarf a bit more tightly than normal and wore a knit cap over my head. My tinted glasses had been stowed in a shoulder pocket as well, useless as they were at this time of day.

_They seem like nice people,_ Jamie answered. She was down at street level pacing the various storefronts and shops that had been closed for the night. Ostensibly I was using my vantage point to spot any suspicious activities along the streets whilst she was making sure there had been no break-ins, but neither of us were wholly focused on our tasks. _Flurry's not what I expected._

"I know what you mean," I said. The Flurry in Jamie's world—or Sunny, as our sudden benefactor had named her—was remarkably different from the one in this world. At first the moniker had confused me; when introducing herself to my parents in her civilian guise with the others, she had used a different name.

_"It's a nickname," Sunny explained. She  
gave a stern glare towards her younger  
sister. "Courtesy of Karen, here."_

_Karen nodded, beaming. "It's cuz  
she's got such a sunny disposition.  
Fitting, dontcha think?"_

At first glance, no. No, it was not fitting at all. 'Sunny' was reserved and polite, keeping her thoughts and feelings close to her chest. However, when compared to 'Flurry', the nickname suddenly seemed to fit remarkably well. Flurry was all business. She was stern. For much of the time that I'd known her I had never once seen her relax. When we were part of her team, she demanded that our work-ethic should meet her high standards. It was difficult to tell when she was pleased, but when annoyed her voice could chill the air.

Sunny shared the precise manner of speaking as her counterpart, but her tone still had an undercurrent of warmth to it. She was much more emotive, she teased and traded jokes with her younger sibling as she'd cooked dinner. There had been a brief moment of chaos as Karen had made a mess whilst retrieving ingredients from the icebox. Sunny had merely chastised her with a tone of long-suffering, which the girl had accepted with a grin and quick apology.

Sunny apparently had no problems with preparing a nutritional soup of some kind for Jamie on such short notice. The practiced manner and the speed with which she'd cooked the meal suggested we weren't the first people she'd played host for. The change of worn but clean clothes she'd provided Jamie to wear for the night had only reinforced that impression. There had been no real chance to ask any questions, however, because once she'd been fed Jamie had wheeled herself to a spare bedroom and dumped herself on top of the bed there, passing out almost instantly. I had stayed a bit longer, making sure our hosts didn't try anything suspicious, until my own body had woken up and pulled me back.

The two of us had resumed our nightly patrol out of sheer habit, the familiar task helping by giving a sense of normality after such a confusing day. It gave me time to think about everything that had happened to me recently. Flurry was keeping tabs on me. Having worked in a supporting role for so long, I had been the least likely of heroes to strike out on their own. After having woken up and showered, I'd found a text from her with a short message.

_Be advised. Suspected supervillain activities reported in Bristol over the past week._

Detail-oriented and obsessive to the point where she had probably been keeping up with the reports I'd been filing with the town authorities. It was a bit grating how she seemed to be micromanaging my activities. However, seeing Sunny's interaction with her sister made me rethink about Flurry's core motives. Maybe, in her own way, Flurry was worried about me. After all, although I hadn't been planning on crossing the River Severn into the larger city, in the unlikely event that I did, she was at least making sure that I wasn't caught unawares.

My actions back at the clinic were another concern. Looking back, I couldn't pinpoint the reason I'd gone and done what I had. Jamie could have bluffed the nurse in the same manner she'd done to get past the front desk on the ground floor. The woman may have even been somewhat sympathetic, easy to convince to simply keep quiet for however long it took to get some distance away from the building. But instead, I'd immediately gone for the brutal knockout. I couldn't recall any earlier incident where I'd responded to a situation with that much violence.

I carefully concealed my thoughts from Jamie. She was just getting used to the idea of having a life of her own, just getting used to the idea that her life had already been sidetracked by the disappearance of every other person she knew. I didn't want to add my own suspicions—that I was turning into some sort of psychopath—to her troubles.

_Hey, James?_ her voice was wavering, sounding uncertain. She was making that voice too often lately.

I wanted to hit myself. Here I was wallowing in my own inconsequential concerns whilst Jamie was going through a literally life-changing event. I immediately perked up and cast out my senses through the link.

"What is it?" I asked sharply, ready to move at a moment's notice. I didn't sense any residual angst from her. Had she found something? There was no movement in her immediate area. Looking at the walls didn't show me any notices or posters that might have warranted closer scrutiny.

Then I looked down, finally noticing what had caught her attention.

She was staring down at a box set against the building. A box of kittens. At this late hour they were asleep, but even as I watched, Jamie stretched out a blue, see-through hand as if to pet them. The fur of one shivered at her proximity and the kitten suddenly blinked awake and shot to its feet, arching its back and hissing.

Her mental voice took on that special syrupy-sweet tone people generally took on when confronted by kitties and ducklings. _Do you think I could have one?_

...

* * *

"Huh, I was going to ask if you had slept well, but you look like you've risen on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Karen poked her head out of the lavatory, toothbrush in hand as Jamie wheeled past the hallway.

"Bad dream," Jamie grumbled. "I got in a fight with myself and lost."

If a wheelchair had eyes, I would be using them to look away and whistle innocently.

Jamie yawned and used one hand to rub at her eyes, the other hand fidgeting with the collar of her pyjamas. Evidently, some time after she had fallen asleep one of our hosts must have changed her and tucked her into bed.

Karen nodded sympathetically before ducking her head back inside and rinsing her mouth out. She left the lavatory a few moments later and began moving down the hall. "Here, follow me for a sec."

Seeing no harm in the request, I pushed Jamie forward after the girl. Karen pushed open a door at the other end of the hallway and beckoned Jamie forward. Entering the room, I had to control my impulse to make a surprised exclamation.

It was a bedroom slightly larger than the one Jamie had been put in, one clearly decorated for a permanent resident. Clothes littered the floor and the bed was unmade in the casual sloppiness one might expect from a teenager. The walls were painted in a bright red, with yellow accents along the windows and doorframes and a yellow carpet. At least, I assumed the walls were red, from what little I could see of them.

Posters and photographs covered nearly every available space. Several official-looking shots of various superhero teams from around the world. The King's Men were in evidence, but for the most part it was the American teams that stared back at us. No real surprise there—if this world was anything like mine, then the Protectorate heavily promoted their own heroes globally.

_Wow... a cape geek,_ Jamie sent over the link with a slightly awed tone. "Um, this is... quite an impressive collection you've got here," she said hesitantly.

"Isn't it?" Karen gushed. She had brushed past us the moment Jamie had frozen in place, moving over to a dresser and began pulling out clothing at random. "The posters you can get from anywhere, but high-quality images of stuff like this?" She flicked her hand towards the corner of the room. An equally messy desk was stood there with a computer set on top of it. A bulletin board was on the wall above it, covered with newspaper clippings and printed copies of various photographs. A blurry photo, probably taken from an extreme distance, showed a formation of red and black-costumed capes standing at attention. Not any team that I recognized. "This stuff is _hard_ to find!"

I longed to get closer to the photograph, but leaving the wheelchair would give me away. Even from here, though, it still seemed too fuzzy to make out any real details. This was high-quality? My curiosity had been aroused, however, so I nudged Jamie with a thought.

"Does your interest in capes come from your sister?" she asked.

Karen shook her head. "Sunny? Nah, she _hates_ capes. Thinks they're a waste of air, quite frankly. She thinks I'm completely mental when it comes to this sort of stuff. That it's a monumental waste of money. But hey, it's my allowance!"

Sunny hated capes? Maybe she was just hiding her activities from her sister. The thought seemed alien to me, although I knew most capes probably operated under the same level of secrecy.

"What does your sister do?" Jamie asked.

Karen frowned at the seemingly sudden change of subject. "She volunteers at a food bank. That's why we're here, actually." She draped a handful of blouses over one arm and began holding them in front of Jamie one by one with the other, discarding each one on the bed as she cycled through them. "Your clothes are in the wash, although I have to say they're cleaner than I expected them to be. You look about my size, so I'm giving you a loaner so she can take you to pick up some nosh for yourself. She needs to vouch for you, you see."

"Huh?" Jamie asked eloquently.

Karen had set aside a faded blue blouse and was now going through pairs of trousers. She gave Jamie a curious look. "They don't just give out food to any bloke or bird that wanders in from the streets, you know. You need to be referred there in order for them to pay out. Haven't you done this before?"

"Um, I... " Jamie floundered briefly before I touched her mind again. "I haven't been... like this... until recently. I'm sort of new to this charity thing."

"Aww, poor thing," Karen commiserated. She unceremoniously tossed the blouse and a set of black slacks at Jamie's head, making the girl yelp in surprise. A jumper and a set of underthings landed in her lap moments later. "Well, that should be good enough for a day trip. Get yourself changed and meet Sunny in the kitchen when you're ready. Just leave the pyjamas on your bed, I'll take care of them later."

Jamie clawed her way free and stared down at the pile of clothes in her lap, sputtering. "Wha—I don't need... I..." She fell silent as she was reminded of her current circumstances. After a few moments she lifted her head with a somewhat troubled expression on her face. "T-thank you," she whispered.

Karen waved her hand flippantly. "It's not a big deal," she said dismissively. She grinned. "All in a day's work around here, you could say."

**ooo**

"How long have you been homeless?" Sunny asked as she drove Jamie down the street.

"M'not homeless," Jamie grumbled, hunched down in her seat. "I've got a home, it's just temporarily under new management."

"I see," Sunny said. The phrase, used so often used by Flurry to give up the argument and move the discussion along, was a familiar enough touchstone that Jamie found herself relaxing in spite of herself. "My apologies. How long have you been on your own, then?"

"I'm—" Jamie hesitated, unsure how to word a response to that question without revealing my presence. She turned her head to stare out the window, watching the scenery as it passed by. "I don't know," she said.

Sunny's car was a white hatchback, an old enough model to have been bought used, or simply well-maintained. Given the occasional hiccups in it's motor and the practiced manner in which the older woman handled the transmission, I assumed the latter. Not that I was a car-aficionado, but I _was_ currently a car-person of sorts. While Sunny had explained her plans for the day to Jamie, I had taken the opportunity to sneak outside and possess the car parked directly in front of the walkway. Fortunately I had guessed correctly, although there would have been no problems to simply switch vehicles if I had been wrong.

Karen, dressed in the uniform she had been wearing the previous night, had watched from the doorway as Sunny helped Jamie into the passenger seat and stowed the wheelchair in the boot. I wasn't sure if it was just random curiosity or if she was looking for something specific. She stood there for a good minute or so, until Sunny reminded her about her classes and the younger girl yelped and dove back inside to fetch her school bags. In the meantime, I was busy getting a crash course in 'How To Move a Car 101'. I usually got around the town on foot and public transit, so this was something of a new experience for me.

We arrived at a wide, squat building, pulling into a lot just to one side. It was mostly brick and mortar, unpainted except for a line of graffiti covering the wall facing the parking lot. Gang signs, artist tags, and even a colorful rendition of an Asiatic-style dragon. I extracted myself discreetly from the car, rather than confine myself to Jamie's wheelchair. Figuratively stretching out my legs, I rose to the building's roof level, hoping nobody would chance upon me by looking up, and ducked inside.

When I'd heard Karen talking about her sister working at a food bank, I'd assumed she meant something like a cafeteria filled with people living in shelters—the kind that's usually seen on the telly. What I saw instead was something like the cross between a grocer and a warehouse, with large pallets of preserved foods stacked in several aisles. An area to one side had been cleared aside from a long table, with more perishable goods piled along its length.

Instead of dirty, grungy homeless people, I saw ordinary-looking men and women browsing the aisles, pushing trolleys that they used to stack their selections on. The pile of fruits and vegetables on the long table were being attended by a group of people wearing aprons; they appeared to be sorting through them and creating identical food baskets.

Sunny was pushing Jamie through the front entrance now, explaining how food banks like this usually supported shelters and group homes. Most of the people with the trolleys were actually employees or volunteers of those organisations, while the food baskets the volunteers were putting together were destined for another location. Sunny worked as a volunteer supervisor, coordinating the efforts of other volunteers and helping to determine where the food would be sent to.

I supposed it made sense. If this was Sunny's side-job, then she could be helping people even when not out on patrols. Working with the local shelters could have given her an informal intelligence network whenever villains tried to hide in the more down-trodden parts of the town. It was brilliant, I only wished I had thought of something like it before.

Jamie picked up on my musings, but she mentally shook her head, even as she continued listening to her chaperone. _I dunno, James. Being a supervisor seems like a full-time job. I'm not entirely sure—_

A sudden noise from outside reverberated throughout the food bank and all activity paused briefly. When the sound—a loud crash or bang—repeated itself again, this time with shouts and yells, the mood immediately shifted. A few of the 'shoppers' looked confused, but the packaging group at the tables immediately dropped whatever baskets they had been working on and gathered up the completed ones, fleeing for the back doors. A few workers out on the floor tried to gather up the various customers and herd them in the same direction. Sunny kept her hands on Jamie's wheelchair, backing away from the doorway she'd just entered.

_Stay hidden,_ Jamie ordered me. _It's just a bunch of chavs marching in on us. Mixed group, lots of shinies._

I focused through her eyes and saw a fairly disagreeable group of young men and women. Nearly all of them were dressed in collared shirts, tracksuit bottoms, and draped with enough jewelry to make them fairly effective solar reflectors. Baseball caps were evident, many of them burberry-patterned. Through Jamie's ears I could hear Sunny muttering something about having recently received a food shipment.

"Oy! 'Ello beautiful!" one of the teens called out. "Nice place you've got here, yeah? Got a lotta food 'ere!"

Jamie's eyes were wide as Sunny stepped around her, placing herself between the growing crowd.

"Please leave," the older woman stated flatly. "We are charged with distributing these supplies to the needy and less fortunate."

"Oh, oh! That's us right? That's us ain't it?" The spokesperson pressed his hand against his chest as he turned and surveyed his friends. "We're totally needy people, we _need_ that stuff you've got there. Totally needy, totally unfortunate!"

The crowd behind him murmured in agreement. Shouted. Hooted. From my vantage point, hovering just below the ceiling, I could see Sunny's jaw tightening. It was rare to see Flurry ever lose her cool. I felt somewhat voyeuristic, eagerly awaiting the moment she got so fed up she began using her powers on the mob.

"Please leave," she repeated. "If you truly need assistance, we have brochures next to the door where you can get in contact with a social worker to evaluate your living conditions."

_Um, Big Brother, about that..._

The spokesman apparently didn't like the fact that Sunny wasn't backing down. He stomped towards her at a half crouch, leaning slightly forward until he reached her, then straightening back up to his full height. I assumed the idea was to give the impression that he was looming over her—possibly very effective if he wasn't dealing with somebody like Sunny, but then there was no way for him to kno—

Sunny took a step back.

_Eh?_ I wasn't sure who emoted in that split second. It was most likely me, although the shocked expression on Jamie's face made me think twice about that. Even as the chav took an extra step forward, leering at his dominance over the older woman, my mind was occupied with thoughts along the lines of, _What in the world?!_

Sunny had submitted. Flurry _never_ backed down from a fight she knew she could win. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was stubborn determination, it didn't matter to me. Whenever we had gotten into sticky situations in the past, Flurry was always the one to calmly evaluate the situation and find the path to victory. Once she found it, she followed through with a ruthless efficiency that had Wu singing her praises for _days_. Well, maybe hours. If none existed, she backed off without any fuss and forced us to do the same until circumstances were more in our favor.

I was beginning to wonder if Jamie's world was some kind of bizarro universe when Sunny suddenly pivoted on her front foot and brought her trailing knee into the teen's stomach. He tried to avoid it, but that extra step forward she had lured him into taking robbed him of distance and he took her strike solidly. She used that same leg to hook around behind him and tripped him, stepping forward to plant her knee against his back and pin his arm beneath him.

The group of teens roared in outrage and surged together as one unit, but were forced back as a ball of fire arced over their heads and hit the pavement in front of them. Jamie and I snapped our heads up to stare towards the back of the mob, even as they spun around to find the intruder. Sunny, for her part, simply closed her eyes in resignation.

"What the _fuck_ are you useless sacs of meat doing in _my_ territory?" an irate, abrasive voice shouted.

The crowd parted before a male figure costumed in red and gold armour. His helmet was long and narrow with silvery horns flaring out from the back. He had a collar cut along similar lines, his entire helmet resembling a dragon's head, with his mouth the only part showing through the dragon's teeth. His arms were covered in similar-looking scaled armour, with just his fingertips showing. On the backs of his gauntlets were two miniature dragon heads, one of them smoking from where the fireball had evidently come from.

"Well?" the cape looked around at the assembled crowd with a sneer on the visible portions of his face. He reached up to touch the miniature dragon and threw another fireball straight into the ground below him, forcing the mob to scatter. "Didn't any of you numbskulls see my sign on the building wall? What do you think you're doing?!"

The building wall? My mind suddenly flashed back to the red dragon I had mistaken for simple graffiti. Not a Welsh dragon, I suddenly realized. A _Chinese_ dragon.

Apparently the remaining chavs thought they were in the middle of a footrace, because they seemed to have no problem continuing with it. Their finish lines must have been in various parts of the city, because they didn't seem to care which direction they started running in as they fled the food bank.

Sunny lifted herself off from her former assailant and he too wasted no time in chasing after the rest of his pack. Her expression was impassive as she stared at the cape. "Stay put, don't move," she told Jamie, speaking from the corner of her mouth. "I'll be right back."

She walked towards the cape calmly and I moved in closer to get a better look. She stopped several paces from where he was standing and crossed her arms. "That was unnecessary," she said. Her voice was pitched low enough that Jamie would have trouble hearing her from where she was. Fortunately, I had no such restrictions.

The dragon cape crossed his own arms, matching her pose. "I'm protecting my assets," he countered. "I told you before, you work for me, I take care of my own."

Sunny waved one hand towards the wall where I knew the 'sign' had been painted. "Your people put that mark there, but I never agreed to anything. We can take care of ourselves."

"Su~ure," he drawled. "Just like you were about to 'take care' of over a dozen young punks."

Sunny paused, the closest the cape was going to get to concession of his point. "I don't want you here," she said bluntly.

He grinned and spread his arms wide, dipping into a mock bow. "You don't really have a choice. Whether you like it or not, this territory is mine. The Bristol heroes can't touch me. I'm just sli~ightly inoffensive enough so that the London teams wont bother to come over either. You're... simply human. You have no support. Give it a try, I offer protection from thugs like those jokers."

I blinked in surprise. _Simply human?_ Another stray memory suddenly clicked into my head, Jamie's discussion with Karen.

_"Sunny? Nah, she _hates _capes. Thinks  
they're a waste of air, quite frankly."_

"You offer extortion," Sunny said with finality. "Nothing good can ever come from negotiating with a villain."

A _villain?!_

_I told you so, Big Brother,_ Jamie sent.

The dragon cape grinned and raised his hand towards Sunny's cheek. She brushed it away irritably. "So principled," he said. "So willing to stand your ground. I admire that, you know."

"Admire something else," Sunny said between her teeth. She was clearly fighting the urge to sock him in the face, helmet or no.

He gave her a measured glance, then turned his back on her and began to walk away. "My offer stands," he said. "I could really use someone like you in my group."

Sunny said nothing, spinning on her heel and marching stiff-legged back towards Jamie.

My mind reeled with the sudden series of revelations. Sunny was a normal human being. The dragon cape, I recognized his voice, his casual mockery. The dancing dragon he used for his symbol. That was _Wu Lung._

And he was a _villain?!_

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**—and part 2 begins! as always, feel free to leave a comment or question regarding the plot or characterisations. to any UK readers out there, especially those who live in southern wales/bristol areas, feel free to nitpick my grammar, use of landmarks, or other things. i could probably use the help.  
_

_thanks, and enjoy as we get the second arc underway!_


	10. Parallax 2-02

**Parallax 2.02**

* * *

After making sure the building and the area around it had been cleared of punk kids and villainous capes, Sunny had sent some sort of all-clear signal using her phone and the workers gradually came back inside. A few of the men and women had been holding impromptu weapons of sorts, but put them away before getting back to work.

If I'd had any doubts about who was really in charge of this location, they were wiped away as I watched Sunny flitting back and forth across the floor. Sunny had spoken with the supervisor currently in charge, who had then directed a volunteer to load up Sunny's car with a few basic food supplies whilst another collected Jamie and tried to keep her entertained and occupied.

Once Sunny was finished with her tasks, whatever they were, she helped Jamie back into the car as I belatedly dived into the boot after taking one last look around the area. I had a brief moment of anxiety when Sunny frowned into the rearview mirror, but it passed when she simply adjusted it and set the car into motion.

Just like on the drive to here, she continued to pepper Jamie with questions. What were her skill sets? Did she have any relatives in the area? Would she consider working at a part-time job if Sunny could find an appropriate one? Et cetera, et cetera. I mostly tuned out the conversation between the two in favor of taking a closer look at the surroundings.

Now that I knew what to look for, I found evidence of Wu Lung's presence all over the area, more than I had expected to find. Objects I had first thought to be statues were nothing of the sort, instead being modified vehicles, street lamps, even whole strips of sidewalk. This was widespread vandalism on a scale I had never seen from Wu before. The entire neighborhood was filled with the altered statues; at least one per block although most had several more. He was using his 'art' to mark off his territory.

When we returned to Sunny's house, we found her sister lounging in the living room with a magazine held over her head. Either we had spent an inordinate amount of time at the food bank, or else Karen had ditched her classes. From the sheepish expression in the girl's eyes, I assumed the latter.

"Erm... hullo, Sunny!" Karen said brightly, if slightly nervously. "I thought you'd be out a bit... longer."

"Karen." Sunny didn't even bat an eye at her sister's presence. She simply sent her to gather up the food and supplies she had retrieved from the food bank and bring them inside whilst she brought Jamie's wheelchair into the living room. I moved back from the car into the chair, keeping an eye on things.

Once there, she stepped around so she was facing Jamie directly and dropped into a crouch. "I should have asked this sooner, but you appeared to be rather well-kept so I put it off until now. How long has it been since you've had a bath?"

"Eh?" Jamie blinked. She was so surprised by the sudden question she answered it reflexively. "I don't know... years, I suppose? But I assume they kept me relatively clean somehow just to keep me from stinking up the room."

Sunny tilted her head as she processed that. "They?"

Jamie belatedly clicked her mouth shut.

Sunny smiled warmly, most likely an attempt to be reassuring. Instead, given who she reminded us of, the expression seemed utterly alien on her face and only heightened the abnormality of our situation. "Believe it or not, you are not the first person in your situation to have crossed my path."

"My situation?" Jamie repeated blankly, striving to keep the unease from her voice.

It was a feeling I shared. Had Jamie's status as a parahuman been found out? Had the research staff somehow tracked us down and contacted Sunny at some point we weren't aware of?

Even as I readied myself for action in case Sunny tried anything, Jamie's panic subsided slightly. "You mean, that I was... sick?" she hazarded a guess.

"As well as being under long-term hospital care." Sunny concluded. I felt Jamie's tension begin to subside. "You were rather clean when Karen brought you here. Cleaner than most other people would be after having lived on the streets for some time," Sunny pointed out. "Your wheelchair is clearly one of the relatively inexpensive models used by most medical facilities. I'm somewhat surprised they let you take it with you when you were discharged, although I suppose you couldn't get around any other way."

Jamie scowled and kept her head high, deliberately avoiding having to look at her legs.

"Yet you had no one that would claim you when you were released?" Sunny frowned as Jamie shook her head. "How long were you in their care?" When no answer were forthcoming, Sunny raised one hand and waved it towards Jamie's head. "Was your hair that long when you were admitted there?"

Startled, Jamie reached up to her head and traced her hair behind her back. She brought the end tips forward to where she could see them, almost surprised how long it actually was. "I don't know," she said. "Probably not, I vaguely remember it falling just about to my shoulders." For good reason. Her self-image, the form she took as a spectre, reflected her younger life. Now, had she been standing, her hair was long enough to have reached the back of her calves.

"So a rather long time, I would assume." Sunny's expression shifted towards one of sadness. "It's rare, but I have met a few unfortunates who have also lost everything to time. Usually they're a bit older, mind you, but they are committed for a long term illness, an injury, or an overdose. When they're finally healthy enough to leave, they find their friends and family have moved on without them. Does that sound familiar?"

Jamie bristled at the pitying look Sunny was giving her, but in spite of her indignation she couldn't stop the tears that welled up in her eyes at the reminder. "Close enough," she choked out, looking away.

Sunny patted Jamie's hand comfortingly. "We'll help you get back on your feet," she promised Jamie. She inclined her head down slightly. "Or are your legs..."

"They're fine," Jamie insisted. "I've just been off of them far too long, they got lazy." She struggled to affix a scowl onto her face, but merely succeeded in a mild frown. "Thank you," she said. "For having me."

"You are most welcome," Sunny said with a smile.

Jamie's mouth twitched slightly.

"Hold on," Karen piped up. She had evidently finished retrieving all of the food Sunny had brought back with her at some point during the discussion. Even now she had piled them carelessly on the table next to the door and was sitting backwards on a chair, draping her arms across the backrest. "So, let me get this straight. You've been in a hospital. For like, a _long_ time. Long enough that when you were released there was nobody around you could call on, that sound right?"

"Karen!" Sunny admonished her with a sharp tone.

Karen slipped off of the chair and padded over, leaning over Jamie. "Say, do you remember your time in the hospital? Or the reason you had to go there?"

"Um..." Jamie said, flicking her eyes around the room as if searching for inspiration.

"No?" Karen guessed. Without any warning she suddenly took an extra step closer and lifted the hem of Jamie's blouse up to her chest.

"Wha—?!" Jamie yelped, belatedly trying to pull the garment back down.

"Karen!" Sunny repeated, rising to her feet.

Karen ignored both of them, scanning Jamie's torso and back before she reached down as if to pull away her slacks.

Oo~kay, enough of that. I seized control of the wheelchair and backed Jamie out of the crazy girl's reach, even as Sunny took a firm grasp of her sister's wrist.

"What is the _matter _with you?" Sunny fumed.

Karen leaned her head down to address Jamie directly. "Say, you don't have any weird tattoos you don't remember getting, do you?"

Jamie struggled to get her breathing back under control, blinking bewilderedly. "... What?"

**ooo**

_This was funnier when it happened to you,_ Jamie grumbled. The two of us were situated in Sunny's bathroom, Jamie having been given the use of their tub to clean herself up.

_How is that? Unlike _some_ people, I am gentleman enough to not peek,_ I retorted. I had situated myself near the lights above the mirror, the better to hide myself in the light in case somebody randomly walked in. Jamie had the shower curtains pulled shut to hide herself and had been given a long-handled brush to scrub herself with. I probably could have stayed outside, safely in the wheelchair, except I was keeping a wary eye on the half-open doorway.

Given that Jamie, as much as she tried to deny it, was currently more or less an invalid, she'd needed help getting into the bathtub and a chaperone in case she somehow fell into a position she couldn't recover from. Sunny had taken care of the first part, her business-like demeanor helping reduce the awkwardness of the situation. However, since she still had business to take care of, she had left Karen in the role of Jamie's lifeguard. She was currently seated outside in the hallway, thumbing through a magazine whilst keeping an ear open for any problems Jamie might be having.

Given that the girl had seemed ready to strip Jamie for reasons I couldn't fathom, I didn't quite trust her and so had placed myself into a position to warn Jamie should the girl attempt anything underhanded.

There was a slight _thump_ and a surprised cry from Jamie. She had lost her balance slightly but had managed to catch herself against the side of the tub.

"All right in there?" Karen called, unconcerned. I heard her turning another page in her magazine.

"Y-yeah, I just dropped my brush," Jamie called back. "Don't come in here!"

"Relax~" the other girl said. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that she wasn't continuing her earlier, bizarre behavior, or indignant that she was being so casual when Jamie could have possibly been drowning in the tub this very instant.

_Your vote of confidence in me is greatly appreciated._

_Anytime! _I replied, still keeping an eye on the door.

"So, I heard you and Sunny ran into a cape at the food bank?" Karen began conversationally.

"Um, sort of. He drove off a bunch of hoodlums looking to steal some of the food or something," Jamie replied.

"Do you happen to recall what he looked like?" There was definite interest in the girl's tone. Right, she was a cape geek, one of those people who followed the news and sightings of parahumans with a near-religious fervor.

"Red armour, lizard or dragon-motif," Jamie said. "Spit out fireballs."

Karen's magazine shifted as she flipped to the next page. "Ah, Wu Lung?" she asked, more to herself than Jamie.

I frowned. So my eyes and ears hadn't deceived me. It _had_ been Wu who had forced away the chavs and tried to pressure Sunny into joining his group. I hadn't really wanted to believe it.

"I guess? You'd know more about him than I would," Jamie demurred.

"Parahumans Online tags him as a Striker/Blaster hybrid," Karen said. "He touches an object and makes it grow somehow. As long as he remains in contact, it acts like it's alive, a fireball-spitting dragon or something."

"I thought he could only do sparks," Jamie mused to herself.

I heard the magazine shifting again as Karen snapped it closed. "What was that?" she asked.

I could feel Jamie freeze as she realised her slip. The creations that the Wu in our world could make had been limited in their output. Now I had to wonder if he'd been holding back or if he really was that weak in comparison. Still, being able to provide information on a cape we supposedly knew nothing could break our cover.

"Nevermind," my sister replied. "Does Sunny know him? She certainly seemed like she recognised him."

"Know him? Hah! It's basically capes like him that basic made Sunny swear off them forever."

"What do you mean?" Jamie asked. She had stopped any pretense of washing herself and I heard the faint sounds of water splashing against the sides as she shifted into a more comfortable sitting position.

"Capes tend to have superpowers right? They can do things other humans can't do. Awesome things, powerful things. But they rarely use it to help us regular folk." Karen's head appeared in the doorway as she leaned to the side. "And for villains like Wu Lung, they try to use their powers to be the biggest fish in the sea and order people to do their bidding. Sunny sees that as a huge waste of their potential."

"What about heroes?" Jamie asked, sounding somewhat indignant. The curtain pulled back slightly and she stuck her head out from the opening to shoot a glare at the other girl. "Heroes protect people. Without them, then all of the villains—"

Karen _tsked_ and shook a finger. "Ah, but that's it, you see. Heroes protect us from the _villains._ When have you ever seen a cape—let's say one with a power to encourage rapid plant-growth—just sit down and help out a farmer for a day or two?"

"But... they help people too," Jamie sputtered.

"We had a hero in the area once," Karen said. "Tinker, not sure if he had any other abilities. But he and Wu clashed a few times and the hero always lost. As soon as he realised he was completely outclassed, he just packed up and moved on. Went off somewhere where he could have a better _reputation_, I'd wager. The town hasn't heard from him since."

_Volley?_ I wondered. If Flurry and Wu's counterparts were here in close proximity with each other here, it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine our final member having been here as well. Volley having to go against Wu alone, I couldn't even have imagined what their fights must have looked like.

Karen looked thoughtful. "I don't quite have the same disregard for them that Sunny does, but I've followed a lot of news about capes on the internet. Partially because it's what makes the news, but you see more stories about the grand hero versus villain conflicts, or the the heroes foiling those major, public crimes. It's almost like that's all they ever do."

"That's not _everything_ they do," Jamie said sharply. I winced at her rising tone of voice and silently sent her waves of calm to try and head her off from an explosive breakdown. "Heroes do plenty more! They help the police, they can find lost and runaway kids, they attend _birthday parties!"_

"Is that what you did?" Karen asked lightly. Her delivery was so casual it took me several moments to parse through what she had just said. When I did, my eyes widened, but it was too late.

"_Yes!_ That is what I—er..." Jamie abruptly cut herself off. "I mean..."

Karen shuffled around on her knees until she was kneeling squarely in the middle of the doorway. She was grinning widely as she lifted an arm and pointed her finger at Jamie. "Got ya," she said.

Jamie's mouth bobbed open and shut several times as she assimilated what had just happened. "I was joking?" she tried.

Karen continued smiling as she rose to her feet, stepping inside as she closed the door behind her. "I might believe that. After all, it's super rare to find a real cape and not someone who's just grandstanding or trying to show off. Buu~ut..." She reached to the wall beside the door and flicked the light switch off.

In the sudden darkness, the glow of my body was easily visible and I saw the reflection of light of Karen's glasses as she turned her head my way. The lights were back on just as quickly and she turned a brilliant smile towards the bathtub as Jamie yelped and seemed to shrink in on herself.

Karen's smile dimmed slightly as she saw the girl withdrawing. "Oh, relax!" She scoffed. "And keep your voice down, I don't want Sunny to know yet."

"How did you find out?" Jamie said, looking glum.

"Your hologram, of course!" Karen replied. "As if anyone could just walk around with something like that. I don't know where you hid it earlier, but it was clearly visible in your room last night when I went to tuck you in."

I was keeping still, hoping to avoid drawing any more attention to myself, but it was hard to not flinch as Jamie turned a murderous glare my way.

"I mean, why would you even think of bothering to hide it when it _glows in the dark?_" Karen continued. "And you've seriously escaped attention until now?"

That brought us both up short. I had known neither of us could turn truly invisible whilst in our spectral forms. In fact the only way we had managed to completely remove ourselves from sight was when we had learned of our possession abilities. How had the fact that our astral bodies remained visible in the world, even whilst crossed over, escaped our attention up until now?

_Mama and Papa both already _know_ about your powers,_ Jamie pointed out suddenly. _They'd have no reason to question or comment on my presence. As for you... well they never really did turn off the lights all the way in my room, did they?  
_

"... does this have anything to do with the fact that you tried to strip me earlier today?" Jamie asked cautiously.

"Oh, that." Karen didn't even look apologetic. "There are a few threads that talk about a group of capes, mostly in the United States. The boards all say they're called 'Case-50s' or something like that. Apparently they all have a history of amnesia and a tattoo, like a U or something similar."

"What's that about?" Jamie asked.

"No idea!" Karen said. "I was half-hoping you could tell me, give me something I can use to get in good with the forum moderators. But I suppose that won't happen since since you sort of remember your past and I guess there's no tattoo... or _is _there?" she suddenly asked, taking a half step forward.

"No!" Jamie dropped back into the water and drew the curtain shut. "No tattoo! I can tell you that with one-hundred percent certainty!"

"Well, if you say so... Well then!" Karen threw a speculative glance at Jamie, as she settled back into a sitting position against the door. "What's your ability?"

Still hidden from view by the curtain, I could still tell when Jamie gave me a pleading look. I sighed, then cringed slightly as Karen whipped her head towards me at the sudden noise. Her glasses hid her eyes behind the reflected bathroom light, but I had no problem counting the teeth she displayed in her smile.

...

* * *

"I'm not so sure that was a good idea," I commented as I brushed my teeth.

Jamie, hovering over my shoulder, looked crestfallen as she tugged at her hair. _She was going to find out sooner or later,_ she commented. _She's tenacious, that one._

_Too right,_ I sent as I downed a capful of mouthwash. I gargled and spit it out, grabbing a towel as I walked back to my room. "I suppose we'll just have to give up the small things and hope she wont notice if we avoid the bigger problems."

Jamie followed me down the hallway. _Bigger problems?_

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. "You know what I mean." The first thing I did when I entered my room was to check my phone for any messages. After that I reached into the back of my dresser and pulled out my costume, laying out the pieces on my bed before grabbing the jumpsuit and starting to put it on.

Jamie had left the room. I could feel her downstairs talking with Mum in the kitchen, informing my parents about my planned schedule for the night whilst apologising for having missed out on another dinner rush. Mum simply reassured her that it wasn't a problem and wished the two of us luck.

_I hate lying, _she sent even as she made her farewells and shot out into the night. _Not just to Ma—your Mama, but to all of the others too._

"You know why we have to do it," I said as I pulled on my scarf and popped my bedroom window open. I swung a leg out and hopped over to a fire escape than ran down the back of the building into an alleyway. Closing the window but not latching it, I made my way over to the steps and began my descent.

_I know why, it doesn't mean I like it, though. Where are we going tonight?_

I thought back to the updates Flurry had mailed to me. "South," I decided. "If there's anything going on in Bristol, we might want to keep an eye on the river crossings."

_And after that?_

"After that..." I shrugged as I looked both ways down the street to make sure the coast was clear, before jogging over to a nearby shed where I kept the electric moped I used to get around whilst in costume. "I think we need to find out more about Wu. Find out what could make him go villain in another life."

**ooo**

_The shadows are flickering._

I perked up, surprised that I had nearly nodded off into a short kip whilst I'd been sitting on the riverbank. "Come again?"

_I think we've got company._

_That_ got my attention. I quietly rose to my feet as I pinged Jamie, she was about two kilometres away from my position. I turned towards where I had hidden my moped, knowing it wouldn't be enough even as I silently cursed my relative lack of mobility. I began to relax slightly since there was nothing I could do. She was already far enough that by the time I'd moved into position, whatever she was detecting would be long gone.

Jamie gave me a new set of priorities. _Um, not sure you'll be able to do anything, but you may want to grab your bike anyhow so I can stay in range. This guy's a Mover._

I winced. Going up against another cape directly was not my cup of tea. "Any idea who it is?" I asked as I began heading in her direction.

_Sure do, it's our old pal Nightwalker,_ she informed me. _Bear north-northwest. I think he's heading downtown. I _told _you we should have gone there._ Her mental tone was piqued.

I sighed. "We are not picking up or spending time to play with stray kittens, Jamie."

_Aww, c'mon..._

"Where is he now? Are you able to keep up with him?"

_If he were being evasive I'd probably lose him,_ she admitted. _But he's mostly staying on a straight path. I think he has an objective._

I tried to think about what might have caught Nightwalker's attention. A Mover-class cape capable of short-ranged teleportation between shadows, he was an extremely slippery individual to confront, especially after sunset. We had brought him into custody once before as a team, but that had been one of the few times he'd appeared during midday. Nightwalker had learned his lesson since then and managed to pull of some fairly successful heists in the past few months.

"I'm contacting Flurry," I informed Jamie, running a cable from my phone to an earbud I placed into one ear. As I sent the call, I kept part of my attention on Jamie's updated position, while another portion was focused on navigating the dimly lit streets.

A hiss in my ear let me know the moment I'd connected. "Flurry, Nightwalker is in town," I said without preamble. "I'm tracking him now, but I'm not sure I can do much when I catch up to him."

_"Understood,"_ she replied immediately. _"Give me a few minutes, to—" _there was a brief yawn, _"—excuse me. Do you know where he's headed?"_

_He's not headed for the shopping district,_ Jamie sent without prompting. She sounded puzzled. _If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was headed for the police station._

Just as confused as she was, I relayed the info to Flurry. "Are there any inmates he'd be interested in releasing?"

_"No." _I heard the sound of cloth flapping in the background as Flurry hastily got dressed. _"As far as I know, no members of his gang have been apprehended recently, nor are there any high-profile criminals currently in custody that I would have thought he'd be interested in."_

_He's inside,_ Jamie said grimly. _He's fighting with the night shift. I swear, teleport spam is cheating._

"Can you do anything?" I asked. I was still several minutes away from the station, helpless to do anything from where I was.

_"Not from here,"_ Flurry said, mirroring my frustration. She sighed. _"I suppose I'll be there in time to help with the clean up."_

_Maybe..._ Jamie said. _If you'll let me?_

I hesitated. Thought about it. _I'd rather you didn't,_ I sent to her through the link, unwilling to let Flurry overhear. _Slippery slope and all._

_The cops are all down. Knocked out I think. He's just going through their filing cabinets now._

I squeezed my eyes shut. Briefly. Thought better of it once I realised I was still driving. _Do it._

Almost immediately, Jamie vanished from my perception as she emerged from her hiding place and dove into Nightwalker. Almost as quickly, barely seconds later, I felt her again. She was bewildered and frustrated.

_He _escaped_ me!_ she exclaimed. _He panicked for just a moment, but then he just teleported away. I didn't even have time to assert any control!_

I slowed down briefly, ready to turn around and intercept him if he was fleeing. _Can you track him?_

I must have spoken aloud, because Flurry was responding. _"Track? Did he flee?"_

_I... I need to get my bearings after that,_ Jamie replied, sounding somewhat queasy. _Sorry..._

"J confronted him," I told her. "He bugged out almost immediately, she couldn't determine a direction." _It's fine, I wasn't quite looking forward to explaining _how_ we brought him down if it had worked..._

_"We'll need to help them recover and see if there are any documents missing,"_ Flurry said. _"Hopefully you prevented him from finding what he was looking for. Good work, Glass. Pass along my appreciation to J as well."_ The line went dead.

"Well," I said as I continued my approach. "I guess we'll have something to occupy us tonight. Paperwork!"

_Fun,_ Jamie drawled._ I~ wanted to play with the box of kitties. Hey, James, do you think I'd look better with the longer hair or should I get a haircut?_

I groaned.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**—just an fyi, this coming week is a holiday for me so i might not be able to get out another update for a bit. just warning.  
_

_leave a comment or review, anything you're liking about the story. anything that bugs you. the usual._


	11. Parallax 2-03

**Parallax 2.03**

* * *

"That is so cool," Karen gushed. "Can you make it do tricks?"

Jamie's wheelchair stopped in place, doing a quarter turn to one side, as if it were looking over its nonexistent shoulder at the girl following it.

"No," I said, rolling my eyes. "The mass of the object limits what I can do with it, although I can move things even most weight lifters might have difficulty budging."

She pouted. "Not even a wheelie?"

"Somehow I doubt Jamie would approve," I said, turning around and resuming our trek down the street.

We had spent the last few hours meandering around the town on foot with Karen supervising. Ostensibly she was there to act as Jamie's guide, while in reality she had weaseled her way into the task as a means to interrogate us without Sunny around. Right now the brunette was reveling in the novelty of a self-propelled wheelchair that didn't actually have any motors of any kind installed into it.

Karen walked us from landmark to landmark, blithely chattering about things that had absolutely nothing to do with the historical significance of the places she took us to. Instead she told us amusing anecdotes of silly things she had witnessed tourists doing at the locations. The stories were funny enough that Jamie had apparently laughed herself to exhaustion, falling silent by the time we'd hit the downtown areas.

On a weekend day like this, the streets around the shopping centres were fairly populated. It was a weekend and the spring weather was warm enough that the various kiosks and cafés were seeing a rather good turnout from the townsfolk. The chance of us running into somebody unexpected was high, yet I felt oddly secure in our relative anonymity.

Karen was dressed in jeans and a hooded jumper with a blue and grey weave in the fabric. Her hair was once again tied back into twin pigtails, the ends resting over her shoulders. A small handbag dangled from the handles of the wheelchair she was pushing as she carted Jamie through the streets. Jamie, for her part, was wearing a blouse underneath a pink cardigan Karen had lent to her along with a long, white skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, although it had been trimmed so that it only hung down to her shoulder blades.

Despite being her elder, Jamie was slightly smaller than Karen, so much that even the younger girl's oldest and smallest set of clothing still reached past her fingertips and feet. The end result made her appear much younger than she actually was, something I hoped might throw off any trackers sent by the hospital-laboratory scientists. Even though we had not heard much—if anything—from them recently, the possibility that they would attempt to retrieve Jamie for their studies was one we both strived to avoid. If they were looking for a crippled Asian girl in her late teens, hopefully they'd ignore the crippled Asian girl who looked to be in her preteens.

I reflexively cringed as I anticipated the scathing retort from Jamie defending her appearance. When none came, I carefully reached into the link and found it... empty. _Again_. Even as part of me began to panic, I noticed Karen leaning over Jamie's shoulder with a thoughtful expression.

"Huh," she said. "Did you two have a late night or something?"

Slightly confused, I chanced a split second to move around to where I could see Jamie's face. "What are you talking about—?"

Jamie was _asleep_. And... I was still here.

That in itself wasn't too unusual. During the period where we had been trying to shift our sleeping schedules, we had more or less become out of sync with each other to the point where it wasn't unusual for the host that anchored our spectral forms to the world to fall asleep before the ghost's main body woke up.

When that had happened previously, barely a minute would pass before the ghost passed back over and force their body to wake up in their original world. I wasn't sure how long Jamie had been asleep for, but something told me it had been much longer than a minute.

"Um," I stared up at Karen, "You can see me, right?"

She blinked. "She's asleep... and you're still talking to me." She stood up straight with a thoughtful expression on her face. "Huh..."

"I'll take that as a yes," I muttered, dropping myself back into the wheelchair. Though I didn't comment on it, Karen's original question about our late-night activities bounced around in my head for a few moments.

...

_"We haven't been able to determine what he was trying to look up," Flurry said as she walked towards me. "Many of the hardcopies for the files have been scattered, either whilst he was searching through them, or when he fled. Was J able to find out anything?"_

_We both turned towards Jamie, who had a pensive look on her face. _Jamie?_ I silently prompted her. She looked up, startled for a brief moment before she turned to face Flurry. "Nothing," she shook her head. "I've searched through my memories, but it was too dark for me to see anything of use."_

_I frowned, there was something off about that comment, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what was bothering me about it. I shook my head to clear it, now was not the time for my mind to be wandering._

_Flurry turned towards me again. "Looking Glass, you were the first person other than J on the scene, do you remember anything that might help us?"_

_I shook my head. "Just the two downed officers. I did a quick check on them to make sure they weren't badly injured. They just had a few knocks over the head and their pride took a serious hit, but they should be alright." I shrugged helplessly. "Sorry, I'm about as baffled as you are."_

_"Hmm," she reluctantly agreed._

...

"So you're a projection of her mind... but she's not controlling you, or else you would have vanished when she passed out..." Karen continued muttering to herself. She paused and stared at the wheelchair she was pushing. "But if you aren't a _projection_, then that means—!"

I poked my head out from the back seat, reaching out with my hand as if it could stop her train of thought from reaching a conclusion. "Wait!"

"...that this is pretty in-te-res-ting~" she continued. She glanced at me with a knowing grin. "What am I waiting for?"

"Nothing," I said evasively, shrinking back.

A low moan interrupted us as Jamie shifted, then stretched her arms out. "Total. Open. Book," she reminded me as she yawned. "You're absolutely _rubbish _at keeping secrets, have I ever told you that?"

"Good morning!" Karen chirped. "I didn't even notice you conked out back there, sorry about that."

Jamie turned to regard our host with sleepy eyes. "S'okay," she mumbled. "I haven't missed anything, have I?"

"Well you missed out on about half of my tour... I suppose I should be a bit miffed about that," Karen replied. She stopped in place to turn the chair several degrees to one side. "Shall I go over what you've missed?"

"That's okay," Jamie said, waving the suggestion away. "It's probably not anything I haven't seen already. And I'm willing to bet a couple of quid you barely talked anything about the town itself and more about him." She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder towards me.

"True. I'm almost disappointed that it—he—wasn't really a hologram," Karen said. "It'd be nice if he was a creation of yours; I could have used a bit of Tinker ingenuity for upgrading my computer."

**ooo**

Our tour continued late into the afternoon, stopping briefly at a nearby café for a quick lunch—or rather, a lunch for Karen and a smoothie for Jamie. Shortly afterwards I suddenly realised that the buildings around us seemed familiar. Not just in the sense that they were identical to the ones back in my world, but something more recent.

Jamie had noticed as well. Her responses to Karen's dialogue became less comprehensive, more clipped. She seemed to shrink in her wheelchair slightly, curling in on herself as she avoided looking at the building we were passing directly.

"What's up?" Karen asked, picking up on Jamie's change in demeanor. She began to slow down, but Jamie reached up and grabbed at her arm.

"Don't stop," she pleaded. "Just keep moving at your regular pace."

"Uh, 'kay?" Confused but compliant, Karen obediently resumed her pace, although she fell silent in favor of watching her closely.

"James?" Jamie whispered.

"On it." My thoughts were running parallel with hers and I immediately took off, first dashing into a nearby alleyway, then climbing up the building's side.

"Where's he—?" I heard Karen ask as I moved out of hearing range.

I made my way to the second floor of the building's east side. Being mid-afternoon, the shadows were darkest there so I dimmed myself as much as possible, but then thought better and simply merged myself with the building's walls. The building was much too large for me to treat as a 'body', but the individual portions of the frame were not. I hopped from segment to segment to hide myself within the walls, then poked my head out once I was certain I had reached my destination.

I found myself in a messy room, currently unoccupied. I was inside the hospital-laboratory where Jamie had been studied—more specifically the office of the doctor who had overseen her treatment. A quick scan of the mess on the desk showed that he wasn't currently working on Jamie's case, so I dove into the filing cabinet against one wall. Opening it proved to be no challenge at all—I simply bypassed the key mechanism itself and pulled at the locking pin directly—and I began visually scanning the folder tabs for Jamie's information.

There was nothing in the first drawer although the tabs appeared to be alphabetically sorted. I skipped to the third drawer but didn't find the proper name range. I finally found what I was looking for in the fourth drawer that I checked, a hanging box-folder packed with sheets of paper. The tab read 'Shirakawa, J'. I dropped myself into the folder itself, carefully keeping the sides pressed together so that the papers inside wouldn't fall out, and lifted it out to drop it onto the desk.

I had just closed the drawers when I heard a key rattling at the door. I quickly dove back into the folder, ready to fly it out of the office window until I realised I hadn't yet taken the opportunity to open it first. With no time for alternative options and no better hiding spots, I stayed where I was as the doctor entered his office and turned on the lights.

He immediately walked over to his desk and I metaphorically held my breath as his eyes glanced towards me... then past me to the rest of the stacked papers. He carelessly brushed a few centimetres of paper from the stack, dropping them carelessly over me as he sorted through his pile, picking out a few sheets from the new top of the stack and walking back towards the hallway.

A quick flick of the light switch dimmed the room and he stepped outside, closing and locking the door behind him. I waited a few more seconds to get my wits under control, then shoved my way from underneath the pile of discarded papers.

I opened the window just wide enough to slide myself out, dove back into the folder, and then I was gone.

It took me a few minutes to return to the girls, flying ahead of their path and finding a place where I could intercept them without the rest of the crowd noticing. Karen had a mildly surprised look when a file folder flew out from between two buildings and dropped into Jamie's lap.

"What was that all about, then?" Karen asked mildly. I glanced towards her, then looked away so she couldn't see my expression and use my own tells against me. She couldn't quite pull off the aloof-impassive look her sister did; although her face was studiously neutral, her eyes burned with naked curiosity.

"Nothing," Jamie said softly as she cradled the folder against her chest. "Don't worry about it."

_Now who's the bad liar?_ I sent.

...

* * *

"Ow."

I woke up that night with the worst case of pins and needles I'd ever felt. It might have had to do with the fact that I was currently sprawled out along the floor, one leg still stretched out above me whilst my arm had ended up beneath me.

Jamie poked her head over the bed and gave me an arch look. "You fell out of your bed," she commented.

"_Thank_ you for pointing that out," I groaned as I shifted myself into a more comfortable position. Once my limbs were in their proper orientation and placement, I began the painful process of working out the kinks and tingles as I struggled into a sitting position. "I'm so glad you're here to point these things out for me."

"Anytime!" she chirped.

I fetched a towel that had been draped across the back of my desk chair and made my way down the hallway, just as Mum came up the stairs with a small basket of clothes. She gave me a funny look as we approached each other.

_"Son, going out again?"_ she asked me in Japanese.

_"Every night,"_ I reminded her in the same manner. I paused at the bathroom's threshold. _"Why? Did you and father need help tonight?"_

_"We'll be fine. It's just that you... " _She shook her head as she passed me, _"Never mind. Take care and come back safely."_

"Thanks," I said under my breath, nonplussed at my mum's odd remarks. I shook my own head, resolving to dunk my head under the shower as quickly as possible. Nothing ever seemed to make sense right after I had woken up.

**ooo**

I didn't actually go out that night. Instead I parked myself in front of my computer and began looking up as many terms as I could remember from the reports Jamie's doctors had collected on her. Or at least as much as the two of us could remember, either way.

_"Neurons,"_ she said.

"The electrical thingies that make up your brain," I replied. "Even I know that."

"Yes, but what does it _mean?_"

"Erm." Rather than try to answer myself I ran the term through an internet search and clicked on the first link at the top of the page. I winced as a wall of text appeared on my monitor. "Um... it means that."

Jamie was quiet for a few moments as she read the screen. "Down," she ordered me imperiously. She fell silent again as I scrolled to the next several lines.

I pointed at another word on the screen as we read together. "_Myelination._ Wasn't that there in the report somewhere?"

"Yes," she said absently as her eyes crossed and criss-crossed the screen. "Down."

The two of us read through the terms, trying to figure out what it meant in the report's context. Once we'd agreed on the particulars, I copied the notes into a simple text-editing program and we moved on. Jamie piped up with the next term she wanted us to look for, _"Motor cortex."_

_"Thalamus."_

_"Amygdala."_

_"Neurogenesis."_

"Wait, wait," I interrupted her. "You remembered _all_ of these terms?"

I saw her eyes flick away briefly before returning to my face. "Sort of," she muttered.

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms, staring up at her. She met my stare, stubborn resolve clouding her expression. I arched an eyebrow and she furrowed her brow, narrowing her eyes into a glare. "Jamie?" I said at last.

She frowned and looked away. "I'm reading the report right now," she said. "I've got a night light."

I blinked, then blinked some more as what she said processed through my head. "Wait a minute," I said, leaning forward. "You mean... _right now?!"_

"Well, not _now_-now," she said. "When you're busy taking down notes, I just jump back over and scan the next paragraph."

She was jumping over? Over to wher—? "Jamie you can cross over to your real body whenever you want?!"

"Yes...? Sometimes." She gave me a peculiar look, "You mean you can't do it?"

I don't quite know how long I sat there, simply staring at her in disbelief. I had never even _considered _doing such a thing. In my physical body I was more or less content to stay where I was. During the periods where I was Jamie's personal ghost, I had been too busy feeling sorry for myself. "No... not so much..."

She gave me a pitying look as she reached over to pat my hand. "Poor Big Brother," she said. "It's not as useful as it seems. It takes a lot out of me to do it," she admitted. "I can probably only do it a handful of times more tonight before my body passes out completely and I'm stuck here for a bit. But this is important." Her eyes narrowed back on the computer screen. "Scroll down, by the way."

I obediently tapped at my keyboard, still shocked by what she had just casually revealed to me. Jamie was able to force her body awake in order to draw herself back into her world for... minutes at a time? Longer? It was a skill I had never even considered, much less attempted to cultivate. It made me wonder why she had thought something like that would be important to learn.

Unbidden, my memory flashed back to the time preceding our escape from the facility, how Jamie's avatar always seemed to blink out at the most random times. At the time I had assumed it to be a product of our mis-aligned sleeping schedules. But now... ? I had to wonder what other ways she had attempted to make use of our abilities that had also never occurred to me.

**ooo**

In this manner, we received a crash course in neuroscience over the next few hours. Hardly enough to make us brain surgeons, but enough to understand at least the conclusions the scientists had produced during Jamie's stay, even if we didn't quite grasp the medical jargon they used to explain their points.

Jamie was not pleased with what we had found.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**—this is sort of cheating, i guess. this chapter is not actually complete. but i'll be out for most of the 4th of july weekend and i wanted to get _something_ out, so here's this first part. it's too short to be a standalone chapter imo, so check back sometime next week (probably middle-ish, not sure how much i'll be able to get done immediately after i'm back) for an update._

_**update:** it's done :D  
_

**_edit:_**_ entirely my fault, but after rereading what i wrote, i decided that the last scene for this chapter took place a bit too soon (narratively speaking), so i removed it to put back in at a later point. hopefully not a lot of you know what i'm talking about but... those who did, consider yourself to have SPOILERS!11one zomg.  
_

_for those who _don't_ know what i'm talking about... eh, you didn't miss much. o.o;_


	12. Parallax 2-04

**Parallax 2.04**

* * *

Today was a rather lazy day. The unusually good weather we had been enjoying had finally given way to the usual overcast sky. Normally this would have been a bad thing. Without some sort of activity, Jamie had nothing else to do but dwell on her recent discovery. Fortunately, she was able to find an alternate way to occupy herself.

"You sure you're okay with just staying inside all day?"

Jamie looked up from where she was, sprawled along her stomach on top of Karen's bed, a hardcover novel laid out just in front of her. She pointedly glanced out the bedroom window where a light drizzle could be seen impacting the glass. "Did _you_ want to go outside in that?"

"It's just a bit of rain," Karen replied from her desk. "It's hardly strong enough to worry about." Despite her comment, she was hardly dressed for the outdoors, instead simply wearing an overly large t-shirt and shorts as she curled up in her chair. She poked at the keys of her computer listlessly before spinning around in her seat. "Are you sure you don't want to do anything else? A lot of people have said it's kind of boring just watching me browsing the 'net."

Jamie looked up from her book and gave the other girl a frank stare. "I'm used to quiet," she said. "So what are you amusing yourself with?"

Karen rolled her eyes, pointedly staring at the posters and photographs that covered her walls. "What do you think?"

Jamie looked up from her book again and blanched. "Ah," she said. "Having fun?"

"Kind of. Nobody knows who you are, apparently."

"What?!" Jamie raised herself over her arms and flipped herself over into a sitting position. The movement gave her more difficulty than it should have—she seemed to still be having troubles with moving her legs, despite her efforts in recent days. She gave them a glare even as she addressed the other girl. "What are you talking about?"

"Rela~ax," Karen flailed one hand, the other still pecking away at her keyboard. "I made a post on the 'Miscellaneous Sightings' section. No real details. 'Unknown cape, flashes of blue, possibly telekinetic'. So far I'm mostly getting responses about some cape around the American east coast, even though I keep telling them I'm in the UK."

I blinked and moved in closer to the screen, verifying for myself. "She's right, nothing that can give us away. Still, you could have asked first," I turned towards Karen with a frown.

She looked unapologetic. "Would you have given me a straight answer?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "Probably not."

Jamie looked pensive. "Maybe..."

I spun towards her, even as Karen turned a brilliant smile on her newest housemate.

"What would you do with that information?" Jamie continued, ignoring my shocked expression.

"Don't know, actually," Karen admitted. "I just like knowing things for its own sake." She scooted her chair closer to the bed. "So who were you, before you got injured?"

"Nobody you'd have heard about, most likely," Jamie said with a glance towards me. "I was... injured... not long after I got my powers."

"Did you ever think about a code-name?" Karen pressed. "Or pick out a side-kick? Ooh, I could be your secret keeper!"

"You're already keeping my secret," Jamie retorted, sounding amused. "As for a name? Hmm, the phrase 'Looking Glass' might have come up once or twice."

Karen's face twisted into a grimace. "What, like a mirror? That's a stupid name."

"Hey!" I protested. I had put serious _thought_ into that code name.

Jamie's eyes were dancing as she glanced towards me. "Yeah, it's not the most impressive of names, is it?"

Karen followed her gaze towards me. "Oh, it was your idea? Well, you should still listen to your master, she's the one who has to live with what people will be calling her."

"Hmph." I crossed my arms and nodded towards the book still in Jamie's lap. "Are you done with that?"

She snapped the book closed and rocked herself to one side, supporting herself with one arm whilst she used the other to fling it into the air.

"Wha—?" Karen started as she snapped her head back towards Jamie. She half leapt out from her seat, one arm stretched out as if to reach across the room. "Noo! Harry!" She stopped herself as the book changed direction in midair and floated back towards her bookshelf.

I carefully slid it back into its place and poked my head out from the cover. "Did you want the next one?"

"Hmm," Jamie rested her chin on her free hand. "Give me book three, I remember hearing that's when it really starts to get good."

I hesitated over the second book. "You sure? You're missing out on a bunch there."

Karen sat there, mouth agape for a few moments. She finally slumped back into her chair, giving Jamie a mock glare. "Mean trick," she said at last. "Don't _scare_ me like that! Those are first-edition copies, they're valuable!"

Jamie giggled.

"... What?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Jamie said. "I was just thinking about how nice it was to have an actual person to tease and annoy. James tries, but it's not quite the same as having a living, breathing person to be a friend."

Karen tilted her head. "You consider me a friend?"

Jamie hesitated, her smile fading slightly. She flicked her eyes towards the brunette before looking away. "...you don't?"

"I—oh!" Karen smiled reassuringly and hopped out of her chair. She took two long steps forward then threw herself onto the bed and across Jamie's back. "Of course I do!" she squealed, wrapping her arms across Jamie's shoulders. "You think I'd let any homeless person into my room? Up until now the few strays we took in just stayed in the guest bedroom until they left. Not that they weren't good people themselves, but you're like the first one who's not really that much older than I am. It's just that, well, you seem kind of withdrawn into yourself. I wasn't sure if _you _felt... safe here, I guess."

Jamie smiled, although it was a somewhat bitter one. "Well, I can definitely say you're the first person that I've interacted with in over a decade who's even close to my age. Also you know one of my secrets."

"And what a secret it is!" Karen's glasses seemed to flash as she glanced towards me. "You know, if you kept him hidden completely whilst you did your little poltergeist tricks, people would just assume you were telekinetic."

Jamie joined her in her scrutiny, making me shift uncomfortably at the sudden attention. "You think?" she asked.

"Definitely." Karen rolled off of her, spinning smoothly to her feet and dropping herself back into her desk chair. "And your ghost is right. You _can't_ skip book two, it has snakes!"

Jamie made a face. "I saw the movie already."

"No!" Karen scowled at her. "Movie bad! Book good!" She jabbed a finger towards me, "James!"

Jamie winced as I dropped myself into the next book in line and threw myself at her. "Mergle..." she mumbled, not pleased at having been outvoted. She dutifully caught the book anyhow and flipped it open, stretching herself out against the bed covers once again.

"It's not like you've got plans for today," I pointed out. "You don't have anything better to do."

"Traitor."

...

* * *

There had been no sign of Nightwalker in the last few days—or nights, as it were. The police station had been cleaned up, but nothing had been found to be missing. The authorities were currently treating it as having been a successful interception, forcing him to flee before he'd achieved whatever his objective had been.

It left me with nothing better to do but resume my new patrol routes, although I kept a slightly more wary eye on the shadowed areas of the town.

_I'm bored._

Well, to be fair, Jamie was mostly searching, whereas I was browsing older reports on my phone.

_I was almost done with the fifth book. Is it just me, or were they getting longer?_

"They were getting longer," I told Jamie.

_I don't remember those parts in the movies._

"And that's why you don't neglect the source material in favor of the adaptations."

_Whose fault do you think it is that I never read the series until now?_

"You're the one who likes reading," I pointed out. "I was fine with the movies."

_Heresy!_

I chuckled to myself even as my phone lit up with a new message from Volley.

_ur such a niteowl now. does BL kno bout this?_

There was an icon that indicated an attachment had been transmitted along with the text. Without bothering to reply to the message, I opened it up and began reading through it.

It was an older police report dated back into the early millennium, long before I had joined the group. It described an encounter between two capes in Bristol, both of them fairly new at the time. Details were somewhat sparse, mostly focused on the broader events and parties responsible.

The outskirts of the city had been suffering some petty vandalism of public properties. Trash bins, sign posts, benches, and other various objects had been twisted beyond recognition. The responsible party had been a young teenager, a newly-minted parahuman that hadn't yet been registered into the system. A modified motorcycle helmet had safeguarded his identity and he had resisted attempts to apprehend him by normal police.

Two other capes had responded to the disturbance, each of them solo heroes. One had been an experienced veteran with several bounties under his belt. The other had been a much younger cape who'd only been active for several weeks. A small skirmish had broken out, resulting in the older cape being incapacitated. The younger cape had managed to pin down the rogue and his creations, making the actual arrest.

It had been Flurry and Wu Lung's first meeting.

The next page in the attachment had been a low-resolution scan of a contract of some kind. The fine print was impossible to make out, as were the typed names below the signatures at the bottom. The meat of the document, however, was just barely recogniseable for me to read the main details. It was a bargain of sorts, negotiated between Wu Lung, Flurry, and several city lawyers. He'd apparently commuted his prison sentence into community service, subject to good behavior—aka, since he'd not been an established villain at the time and this was his first offense, he'd played nice and switched sides. Flurry, as a cape with a proven record against him, had effectively become his parole officer despite her relative inexperience.

It was interesting information, something I hadn't really heard about before. It still wasn't enough for what I'd been wondering. Although it did show that Wu Lung had initially used his powers for his own amusement, it still didn't answer why he'd taken the step further into direct villainy—as the leader of his own personal gang, if I had been reading into Sunny's and the alternate-Wu's conversation correctly.

_'You-are-such-a'... what's a, oh 'night-owl. Does—' who's 'BL'?_

I looked up from my phone and found my face partly embedded into Jamie's. I backed away with a muffled exclamation, but she hardly seemed to notice, instead staring down at my phone's screen.

_Oh,_ she sent. _'Boss-Lady'. Is that Volley?_

"Er, yeah," I said. "I sent an email to him last night asking about Wu."

_Oh, why does he need to know if Flurry knows?_

I glanced down and flipped back to the police report. "Maybe because he thinks she knows him better than we do, most likely."

Jamie looked pensive for a moment, though for some reason I could just barely pick up her surface thoughts. A chaotic flash of white, red, and gold. _Maybe..._ she mused.

Before I could ask her what she meant, there was a sharp noise that carried through the air—the sound of glass breaking.

_Whoops._ With a sudden flash of blue, Jamie whipped through the air and sped for the distant noise.

With a sigh, I hopped off the roof and landed on the building's fire escape, sliding down as fast as I could so I could follow.

...

* * *

When Jamie rolled in for breakfast, she found a small stack of papers next to 'her' plate. "What's this, then?" she asked.

"Job opportunities," Sunny said as she stepped out of the kitchen. She placed a bowl of oatmeal on her plate then waved a hand over the stack. "Places that do not require too much experience and are not physically intensive. They should be good starting points for you becoming more self-sufficient."

"Uh... I need to get a job?" Jamie asked bewilderedly.

"That _is_ the usual manner most adults use to survive in the world," Sunny pointed out.

Jamie grumbled and began browsing the sheets with one hand, her other hand reaching for the spoon Sunny had thoughtfully left in the oatmeal.

Jamie didn't really find anything she wanted to do from the list—or at least nothing really jumped out to her that would make her say, 'Oh, well _this _sounds like something I'd want to do!' While she was still reading and eating, Karen ran past her chair in her school uniform—stopping just long enough to grab a muffin Sunny had left on the table—before rushing out the door.

"Morning, Jamie; bye, Sunny!" she called out as she jogged down the walkway.

After Jamie was done eating, I tagged along as Sunny drove her to a multi-story apartment complex. She took Jamie inside with her as she spoke with the landlord, asking politely about the various tenants. The landlord gave us a brief tour, pointing out the various rooms that were accessible on the ground floor.

"What do you think?" Sunny asked Jamie.

Jamie's eyes flicked around the hallway and the sample room the landlord had showed off. "Um, it's nice?" she commented, unsure why her opinion mattered.

Sunny seemed unusually focused as she stared at Jamie's face, but she simply turned and thanked the landlord and the two traded business cards.

Sunny drove her to a different location, this one a flatter but more sprawling housing complex. Once again she brought Jamie with her, showing her around and asking about various residents she and the landlord apparently shared associations with.

It wasn't until we were leaving the third such stop that Jamie finally voiced her concerns. "Sunny?" she asked. "What's this all about?"

Sunny glanced towards her, then resumed her focus on the road. "Housing options," she said matter-of-factly.

Jamie thought about it. "Oh, so you help out with finding shelters for homeless people too? Kind of like helping them get food with your warehouse?"

"I primarily work with the food bank," Sunny corrected her. "And although we do not support them directly, these apartments are run by people I know very well. I trust the individuals who run them and they do me the favor of discounting the rates for people I point out to them."

Though I didn't breathe in this form, I could feel my breath catch. Jamie apparently did not pick up on my abrupt train of thought, or she simply ignored it.

"Like the people you and Karen pick up from the streets?" she asked.

Sunny glanced at Jamie, then back to the road, then back at Jamie whilst we were stopped at a streetlight. "Exactly that," she said.

She held the stare until Jamie's eyes suddenly widened as she made the association. "Oh... " she said.

"It is nothing against you, personally," Sunny assured her. "Karen greatly enjoys your company and despite my wishes, she does not have very many peers that she socialises with in her school." She turned back towards the road as the light changed. "Unfortunately, we cannot take care of every individual that has crossed our path indefinitely. We can assist them, take care of them, help them get back on their feet, but ultimately ours is a temporary support."

"So... the trip to the food bank?" Jamie asked.

"Extra food, enough for me to support you during your stay," Sunny said. Her mouth twitched slightly. "Being one of the supervisors does help towards that end."

"The questions about my backgrounds and the job applications?"

"A means of figuring out a skillset you could support yourself with," Sunny confirmed.

"Today's little housing tour?"

"More permanent dwellings." Sunny glanced at Jamie to gauge her reaction. "I cannot keep you, Jamie... no matter how much Karen might wish. Aside from the legalities involved—although if you are as old as you say you are, that should not be _too_ problematic—we simply do not have the resources to take you on long-term. We have aided many such individuals in the past in the same manner. Many of them have been able to recover and return to society."

"So... Karen knows?" Jamie's voice was a dull monotone.

"If it were wholly up to her, I'm sure she'd wish to find a way to let you stay on," Sunny said. "And to be honest, I am not against the idea of having someone else close to her age to associate with. But this is how we have always handled this sort of situation, so... yes, she knows."

Conversation fell away after that little revelation. Jamie was too shocked to speak up and Sunny was content to let her work through it on her own. The silence was somewhat awkward as we pulled up in front of Sunny's home.

"Jamie," Sunny said as she pulled out her wheelchair. "I know this must be somewhat upsetting for you, given your history. In deference to this I am willing to allow you to stay with us longer than is usual, but you must come to terms with the fact that someday we will have to part ways."

Jamie nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Sunny seemed to wait a few moments longer, as if waiting for a more comprehensive response. Finally though, she unfolded the wheelchair and began the process of helping Jamie into it and wheeling her inside.

I shivered. Throughout the whole conversation Jamie's thoughts had gradually dimmed, growing fainter. By the time we had reached the house all I could pick up with a faint background noise as my sister completely withdrew within herself.

This didn't bode well.

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)—**i'm happy that some people are leaving reviews to give me some pointers and britpicks. unfortunately, ffnet doesnt really allow linking so many of the resources you're probably trying to link to me aren't coming through. if you'd like to send me a page or a video, you might have to do some shenanigans with the url for ffnet to accept it._

_example: www dot google dot com or www. google .com breaking up the url or replacing it with nonsense symbols/words. _

_**setting:** some people seem to be confused about the setting slightly. mostly my fault since, again, i've not really lived in the uk so descriptors may not square completely. looking glass was based in chepstow, which is a town (and apparently much different from a city). cardiff is the closest city apparently which may more closely match, being much bigger and all..._

_i guess if the suspension-of-disbelief wills it, let's just say its a city-sized area that is positioned around the area where chepstow is. sort of like how worm's Brockton Bay is a fictional location in the us east coast, 'Glasstownsville' (shrug) is a fictional southern wales setting. if that doesn't work, leave a comment!_


	13. Parallax 2-05

**Parallax 2.05**

* * *

Jamie retreated into the guest room Sunny had made available to her. She wasn't rude about it—she didn't storm off or make a fuss, slamming doors as she passed them. Instead, I watched as she had quietly asked Sunny if she could be excused to her room. When Sunny had asked if she was feeling well, Jamie had simply stated her desire for solitude. Pretty much in those exact words, too.

Jamie's time here was limited. Whatever charity Sunny and Karen had felt towards her and her situation, it didn't extend far enough to include permanent residency. I didn't need to be in her head to know that she had not taken the news well. Still, I couldn't blame them; from what I could tell, they had been at this for quite some time and asking them to make an exception for us would limit their ability to aid future individuals in need.

Jamie probably understood this as well. As much as she might have wanted to complain and rant about her upcoming eviction, she also knew that she'd received much more than she had any right to expect from a pair of strangers. The two ideas were at odds within her head, a pair of conflicting impulses to deny her situation or to accept it and try to make something from it. From the way Sunny's eyes followed her as she made her way to her room, I suspected she understood just what sort of bombshell she had dropped on the girl. She stayed behind in the main room, giving Jamie the space she'd need to think her way through the problem.

I might have done the same on my own, but Jamie had taken that choice away from me. She was keeping herself closed off from the link, unwilling or unable to allow our thoughts to mingle. Even if she'd been acting as bright and chipper as she had earlier in the week, that alone would have been enough to send up warning flags in my head.

The moment the door was closed, Jamie rolled over to the bed and tipped herself forward to sprawl across the covers. I left the wheelchair to hover in place above her, but that was the most I could do. I considered speaking out, but paused as I realised I had nothing I could say to instantly make this better for her.

"I'm not going to ask if you're okay, because we both know that you're not." That didn't mean I wouldn't _try_, however.

Jamie remained still and silent, not responding to my presence or my words.

"I'm not going to pretend I know exactly what you're going through," I continued. "But at the same time, I'm probably the closest you'll ever get to someone like that. Let it out."

I felt a faint flicker in the link, like a soft whisper. Barely a moment had passed before it snapped itself closed once more.

"Jamie... "

"I don't want to talk about it, not right now," she said. She finally rolled over onto her back, settling against the pillows. "I think, right now, I just want to pass out and pretend the last few hours never happened."

"Um... " I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "Did you want me to try to keep you company?"

She cracked one eye open to stare at me for a few moments, then closed it, turning her face away. "Thanks, but I'm not going anywhere. Feel free to amuse yourself somehow."

I frowned as I stared down at her. It was slightly disturbing for me to realise that I didn't know how to read her body language or more subtle expressions. Without being able to draw on the link I had no clue as to her intentions and it was discomforting to find out I might not know Jamie as well as I should.

She opened one eye again. "You're still here?" she asked. "Skedaddle."

**ooo**

The room we had been given was utilitarian. It had a bed, a nightstand, a desk, and a medium-sized footlocker. It was comfortable, but impersonal... and when you got right down to it, it was rather dull.

I tried to tell myself that was the only reason I had decided to relocate myself to Karen's room. It was more interesting, more vibrant. There were lots of things for me to pull down from her shelves to read.

Despite the possible distractions, my thoughts remained wholly focused on Jamie. Or rather, what Jamie had chosen to do. She had seemed to be zoning out at random intervals during the past few days, but it was rare for her to fall asleep and leave me here. The only other time I could recall this happening was the day we had broken back into the hospital.

Another memory rose to the forefront of my consciousness—the night immediately afterwards where she had revealed to me her ability to control which body or avatar she could place herself into. At the time the information we had uncovered had grabbed more of my attention than her little revelation, but now that I had thought about it I suddenly realised this was a huge aspect of our abilities.

The first thing that came to mind was that neither of us could be 'trapped' in either universe if we had freedom of movement across the planes. A second thing was that both of us could be active simultaneously, with the apparent drawback that we'd have to store our physical bodies somewhere safe before we crossed over. The third thing was that I had absolutely _no clue_ how to go about duplicating her feat.

Part of it had to do with how our abilities had worked prior to her awakening. I had always operated under the assumption that an active consciousness in our body worked as a tether of sorts to anchor our ghost forms. If I were awake, Jamie's ghost would be drawn to me; conversely, when Jamie's body was awake my current self would be drawn to her. This current situation broke the pattern. Jamie was apparently able to jump back to her physical body even whilst I was still awake, and she was able to jump into her ghostly avatar even whilst I was in mine.

Of course, she might have been just been asleep. If it turned out she was, I'd probably feel rather foolish about myself.

Well, there was only one real way to find out. I settled myself in the air, closed my eyes, and turned my focus inward. I'd never tried actual meditation before, but I figured it was nothing more than dropping one's self into a proper mindset. I reached deep into myself, looking for that small _something_ within me, and tried to give my physical body the command to _wake up._

I cracked open my eyes to the sight of Karen's poster-covered walls. Hm... I reached deeply into myself and gave myself the command to... _fall asleep?_

Still nothing.

_This... might be a bit harder than I thought..._

**ooo**

I wasn't sure how long I spent trying to duplicate Jamie's little trick. I don't think that I ever quite managed it, although I did get glimpses and flashes of scenery at the edge of my awareness. It seemed that my body was able to dream even whilst I wasn't there... and apparently I dreamed of playing with kittens. Or at least _a_ kitten. The one in my dream reminded me of the ones Jamie had found in the town during one of our patrols. I wasn't quite sure, since what little connection I did have with my body disappeared shortly afterwards and I was kicked back into my ghost avatar.

When I came back to myself, I found myself staring into a pair of wide eyes framed in round lenses. I reflexively jerked backwards even as Karen did the same, taking a half-step backwards and bringing one hand up to adjust her glasses.

"What are you doing in my room?" she asked. She looked around as she tossed her schoolbag onto her desk chair. "Where's Jamie?"

"Jamie's in her room," I said. "She kicked me out so she could sleep."

"Ah," she said with a knowing tone. "I passed Sunny on the way in. Did she tell—?" She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and winced slightly as she noticed my expression. "I guess she did. Is Jamie alright?"

I hesitated before I could toss out a reflexive, _She's fine._ I was still unable to reach her through the link. It wasn't like there was a void or an emptiness where she'd normally be, but rather each time I reached out to her my probe was rebuffed. It was like there was a solid barrier that my thoughts couldn't cross.

"I don't know," I finally said.

"Hmm. Go see if she's up for visitors," Karen said, waving me away. "I'm just going to change out of my uniform real quick and head over."

"Alright." I looped back through the air and flew through the wall. I felt a brief twinge as my power tried to interact with the drywall, then the electrical wires routed through the building—a second twinge as I emerged into open air and glided across the guest bedroom.

Jamie was still asleep on the covers, but her eyes snapped open the moment I settled into place above her. She said nothing, lifting an eyebrow at me in unspoken question.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. _How are you? _No. _Are you feeling better?_ No. Both of those sounded trite even in my head. I might not have known exactly what was going through her head, but I knew Jamie better than anyone else and I knew she wasn't nearly as calm as she might have appeared.

"Sleep well?" I asked instead.

"As well as I could, all things considered," she replied. She closed her eyes briefly and opened them again, blinking away the sleep from her eyes. "Do you think we could get a kitty?"

I smiled at the wistful tone in her voice. "I think I picked up part of that," I said. "Seemed like a nice dream." I noticed her expression shift and frowned. "What?"

Jamie had paled slightly, staring at me with wide eyes. She seemed to catch herself and she turned her head away, a slight flush across her cheeks. "You weren't supposed to see that," she mumbled.

I lowered myself to rest above her chest. "You shouldn't be afraid to share your thoughts," I said. "I can't help you if I don't know what you're feeling. We've lived like this for years, what have you to be afraid of?"

"Everything," she said. She threw one arm over her eyes, still avoiding my gaze. "I'm alone."

"What am I? Chopped liver?" I asked with mock offense.

She lowered her arm, staring up at me. "I'm serious. You don't have a choice in staying with me, and it's the same for me. I... I can _talk_ to you, and that's it. We're siblings who can't even touch each other." Her voice became softer and flatter as she spoke. Her expression froze into stillness and her eyes looked... dead.

There was a pair of knocks on the door and it creaked open to admit Karen's head poking around the frame. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she asked with a sort of false cheer.

"Don't mind me, just having another breakdown over here," Jamie said, even as she waved the other girl inside. "Your sister told me she was throwing me out."

"Did she?" Karen asked airily. "That doesn't sound like Sunny. Her sentences are usually at least twice as long."

"Would she?" Jamie turned towards her. "Do it, I mean? I... I don't have anywhere else to go."

"That's not true, I'm sure she was giving you options on where you could go. She wouldn't be so irresponsible as to forget that."

It didn't escape either of us that Karen hadn't denied her older sister's plan of action. Jamie seemed to shrink in on herself. "But I wouldn't know anyone at any of those places. I'd rather stay here."

Karen smiled sadly. "I'd love to keep you around if we could, Jamie. You're like the first friend I've had in a long time."

"And you were my only one," Jamie said.

Karen arched a brow and pointed at me. "Your ghost doesn't count?"

"He _is _me, sort of..." Jamie shook her head, "It's not the same thing."

Whatever she was doing to shake herself out of her train of thought, the motion seemed to have broken something else loose. I had a sudden sensation not unlike that of glass _cracking_ and found that I could suddenly hear a low buzzing. It seemed like it was coming from our link, but it was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

_... e... y..._

Karen approached the bed and sat down on the edge, placing a hand on Jamie's shoulder. "Jamie, I really like having you around, honest. But the world is bigger than the both of us. And Sunny and I... we'd like to help _everyone_ in it if we could. It's why we do what we do. If we didn't... well, I might never have met you in the first place. If we kept you, we couldn't take anyone else in either."

Jamie lowered her head and said nothing.

_...my friend... nted... y fri..._

"I mean, would you want to deny some future people the chance to make friends with us too?"

"But... you're _my_ friend, right?" Jamie asked.

I frowned as I focused onto the strange noise. It _almost_ sounded like Jamie's train of thought, except... different.

Karen grinned, but there was a slight tension in her eyes. "As friendly as anyone could be after knowing each other for just over a week."

_My friend. I wanted you to be my friend. I don't want to be alone, be my friend._

Karen's smile softened. "It's not like we'd never see each other again, you know. I'm familiar with the places that Sunny picks where to send our... former tenants. The people who run them aren't so bad—they're actually quite nice. And I still visit some of the others who live there too."

Jamie squeaked slightly as Karen moved her hand across to her opposite shoulder and gave her a one-armed hug.

"So, don't worry, nobody's _abandoning_ you."

I felt a surge of emotion and suddenly the thoughts across the link became clearer and more distinct, but no less confusing. They were still muted, but it felt like they were pressing against a barrier of sorts. The trace amounts leaking through were a confusing mass of thoughts and feelings.

_Mama gone, Papa gone, family gone home gone, who are my friends who are my playmates who are my heroes my enemies my support i had friends i had a friend i'm alone i'm alone i'm alone..._

Jamie's hand came up to rest over Karen's. "Nobody's abandoning me... nobody's leaving me, except they're making _me_ leave you."

"Ah, Jamie?" I tried. "Nobody's forcing anyone to—"

Jamie's hand tightened against Karen's, keeping it pressed against her shoulder.

"Eh?" Karen tried to pull her arm back but found it locked in place. "Jamie?"

"My parents didn't want me," Jamie said, her voice suddenly hard. "The scientists didn't want me, they just wanted my _brain._"

"Scientists? Jamie what are you talking about?" Karen leaned away slightly to get more leverage for her arm, but Jamie held her solidly in place.

"Karen," I began, "she's not feeling very well right now. You might want to give her some space—"

"But _you're_ my friend, right?" Jamie lifted her head slightly, although she kept her gaze focused on the far wall, rather than look at either of us. "Friends don't abandon each other, yeah?"

_i was happy i was happy and you're taking it from me you're taking away my friends my life my family my home i thought you were my friend my ally my sister i trusted you why did i trust you can't trust you why did i think you were any different_

There was a dissonance between what I was sensing over the link and what Jamie was saying. Her face was inanimate, a flat expression that didn't match her hopeful tone at all. In contrast, I was picking up some very _strong_ feelings from her, as if her careful self-control and shielding was disintegrating even as she spoke. Emotions were filtering through now in ever larger amounts and I suddenly realised—

—Oh... this was going to be _bad_.

Karen had a slightly worried expression on her face, slowly transitioning to panic. "Jamie I _promise_ you, I'll be your friend but there's no reason to—"

"I was _happy_ here," Jamie continued. "For the first time since I woke up, I had a place I felt I could _belong._ James doesn't count, his parents aren't _my_ parents. His friends aren't _my_ friends. I haven't had parents or friends of my own in _years!"_

"Jamie!" I barked, part warning, part command. She was venturing dangerously close to giving away our biggest secret, yet something told me she was on the verge of something far worse. "L-let Karen go, Jamie!"

"I-I... we were happy to have you too, Jamie," Karen stuttered. She brought her free hand behind her, fishing for something in the seat of her trousers. "But—

"I don't even remember Mama's hugs!" Jamie's voice rose in volume and pitch as she let herself get more and more worked up.

"Jamie..." I tried one last time.

_"And nobody wants me!"_ She all but shouted over my objection. Karen yelped as Jamie's hand clamped down onto hers in a pincer grip.

"Jamie!" Karen's eyes flashed towards me briefly before she refocused on Jamie's face. "Jamie, I'm _so_ sorry but... _SUNNY!"_ Her other hand withdrew itself from her pocket and I caught a glimpse of a small object nestled in its palm. She flipped it around in with a practiced flick of her wrist and I caught a glimpse of a metallic cylinder—

Karen's arm rose, raising the pocket-sized torch as if to club it against Jamie's side.

—and my vision went red.

There was a pair of sharp screams, a sickening thunk, and suddenly the bed creaked as Karen keeled over, falling across Jamie's legs. Jamie merely frowned as the unconscious girl's body settled against her, then turned her head to stare at me.

I released my hold on the torch, allowing it to drop to the floor as my mind frantically tried to recall _what had just happened._ I didn't even _remember_ going for the light, much less turning it back on its owner. Yet, the evidence was clearly in front of me. Jamie didn't look surprised at all. Instead she leaned forward and ran a hand across the growing lump on the back of Karen's head with an oddly compassionate expression on her face.

"Move away from her," a cold voice said from the doorway.

I closed my eyes as if the action could simply will away the reality I was finding myself in. _This was not happening..._

"Jamie," Sunny said, brandishing a cast-iron spatula. "I understand that you are... slightly distraught. But please move that thing away from my sister."

"She's my friend," Jamie said, not looking up from the unconscious girl. "I won't abandon my friends."

"I would like to help you as well, Jamie," Sunny said. "But my sister's safety comes first. Move. It. Away... please."

_James._ Jamie's tone was sharp, commanding. The link was overflowing with feelings now, Jamie's barriers had broken down completely now. A sudden surge of grief filled me, followed by an icy calm, followed by _rage._

I hadn't been looking, keeping my eyes closed as tightly as I could, but I was still aware of my surroundings to a certain degree. When Jamie called out to me, when my world went red, I had time for one last thought.

_I've felt this before,_ I suddenly realised. Then I was swept away by the torrent and I knew no more.

**ooo**

* * *

_**a/n**—sorry for the late update. i've been taking summer classes and these last two weeks have been filled with final projects and last-minute cramming._

_i'm curious to see what responses there might be in regards to this little development. i think i might have mentioned in some of my other stories that while i consider myself to be fairly decent at building up events, my payouts tend to be ... meh? (let me know if you think otherwise)_

_along this same line, even if this is the main thing that _really_ get's the plot moving... now that it's out of the way i need to figure out just how i'm gonna conclude this. i have a vague ideaaa... but again, actually working it out so it doesn't seem like a poor ending? this will be... fun._


	14. Interlude 2 (Wu Lung)

**Interlude 2**

* * *

He hated this city. The buildings were all too short and there weren't enough lights to go around. Most of it was rough stonework, hardly any concrete or plastic to be seen. The locals called the architecture 'quaint' and 'historical'. He called it 'old-school trash'.

As Evan ran down the pavement, four or five drunk men chasing after him, he reflected that may have not been the wisest of comments to make. In retrospect, he _really _should not have mentioned that out loud when the locals were in earshot. Certainly _not _whilst walking past an open-air pub.

'Evan' was not his real name. When he'd been born his parents had given him a _proper_ name to call him by. After they'd died, he'd chosen a new one for himself. As a Chinese teenager dressed in worn trousers and a hooded sweatshirt, he was barely half the size of the men chasing him. Despite this size difference, he was clearly in much better shape—he ran with the practiced stride of one who regularly took up distance running, while the men chasing him were already showing signs of fatigue.

_At least people walk and drive on the _correct_ side of the road here,_ he mused. He didn't want to imagine what might have happened if he hadn't looked to his right and left before crossing the street. He might have missed seeing the scooter that nearly clipped him as he attempted to escape across it.

He planted his right foot into the pavement, stalling his forward momentum just long enough to keep himself from stepping into the scooter's path. Its driver beeped at him as it drew close and passed barely centimetres in front of him.

_Jerk._

His left leg came around, snapping itself to full extension just in front of the driver, then hooking back around to catch him just beneath his chin. The man flew off the back of his vehicle and slammed into the ground. The scooter continued for several more metres before it crashed to the street and skidded to a stop.

He wasted no time, kneeling across the driver's chest and wrenching the helmet away from his head. Even as the other man gasped in pain, he palmed the protective headgear and let his power course through it. Information about its mass and material composition flooded through his mind and continuously updated him as he made the alterations.

The hard plastic shell shifted and portions of it withdrew into itself, leaving short, stubby spikes along its surface. The full-faced visor was reinforced with extra material even as the rest of the helmet itself lost an equal amount spread across its surface. Seeing his task completed, he dropped the helmet around his own head, then squared his shoulders and turned to face his former assailants.

Of the original group chasing him, only three of them now surrounded him along the pavement. Behind the wall they presented towards him, he saw a fourth member walking unsteadily towards him, breathing heavily from their brief chase. If there had been a fifth, he saw no sign of him.

Then he felt a sharp impact against the side of his helmet and he stumbled briefly. _There he is._ The fifth man cried out in pain and shook out his fist, blood welling up where his knuckles had scraped against the spikes.

"Bloody hell!" the man shouted.

"Ha ha," he replied. "That's funny, because your hand is all bloody. Clever. I approve."

One of the other men grabbed his collar and hoisted him up into the air, bringing his face within inches of his helmet. "You think you're hot stuff, Chink?"

"No..." he grabbed the man's sleeve with his hand. The mass of the cloth filtered through his mind. With a thought, he forced the whole shirt to consume itself, the energy twisting itself around and sparking itself into fire. "I think _you're _the hot stuff around here."

The man shrieked as his clothing spontaneously combusted, dropping him back to the ground and frantically trying to pat himself down.

Hidden behind his newly acquired visor, Evan's eyes shone with glee as the reflection of the flames danced within his eyes.

**ooo**

By the time the official response had arrived, all five men—six if one included the owner of the scooter—had fallen to the pavement in various states of unconsciousness.

The pavement itself was warped in areas. Short calf-high barriers were sprinkled here and there, with matching divots nearby where the extra mass had been drawn away to raise them. Several of the brawlers had bruises along the front or back of their legs at the same height as the walls. The top half of a signpost was missing completely, a man lay nearby with a scorch mark against his side.

The scooter itself was almost unrecognisable. It had been stretched out to nearly twice its length, its mass shifted and rearranged along its frame to resemble a serpentine creature. If anyone had bothered to ask, however, Evan would have informed them that it only had a little less than three-quarters of its mass remaining on the frame.

The first responders had their squad car blown up from underneath them by a fireball the size of a bowling ball. Five-eights of the scooter's mass remained.

The next few squad cars to arrive took up safer positions several dozen metres away and officers took cover behind their open doors.

_"Step away from the... vehicle!"_ a bullhorn-amplified voice rang out. _"Hold your hands out to your sides, do not make any sudden moves!"_

Evan flipped the visor on the helmet up briefly and spat onto the ground before lowering it again. He arranged the scooter-dragon in a more stable position and then removed his hand, turning slightly and leaning his back against it, arms crossed against his chest.

"Self-defense!" he called out. "These bums tried to jump me!"

_"Put down your weapons!"_

He grinned, "I don't have any!"

_"Final warning, put down your weapons!"_

He rolled his eyes, though the action was lost since his face was still covered. "_What _weapons?!"

"Hold your fire," an authoritative voice called out. A tall man clad in an armoured, golden costume stepped inside the perimeter, a young girl in a white, hooded cloak following at his heels. "We'll handle this."

_"Sir—"_ the officer belatedly realised he was still shouting through the bullhorn at the cape and flicked it off. "Yes, sir!"

"What's your name, boy?" the older cape asked, fists posted against his hips.

"What's yours, Old Man?" Evan countered.

"I go by Ajax," he said politely. The bulky golden armour around his limbs and chest plates shifted briefly before settling down as he stepped into the ring bordered by the police cars.

Evan shrugged. "Never heard of you."

There was a slight pause as the two simply stared at each other. The hero was obviously waiting on Evan to return the courtesy he'd been given and offer his own name. Seconds passed as Ajax took several more steps towards the pavement, several steps closer to Evan.

"Are you responsible for this?" Ajax waved his hand to encompass the torn up pavement and fallen bodies.

"Maybe."

"Are you perhaps also responsible for the recent incidents of vandalism around this area?" Ajax's helmet stared pointedly at the coiled up scooter-dragon.

"Maaaybe."

"You are a remarkably unhelpful and rude individual, has anyone ever told you that?"

Evan inclined his head and grinned. "Why, thank you."

Ajax sighed. "I'm going to ask you just this once, will you come quietly and turn yourself in?"

Evan glanced upwards, staring at the 'head' of his transformed scooter. "Nah."

**ooo**

The fight was short. Evan had never heard of Ajax before, but if he'd had he would have recognised the mythology the man had taken his name from. Not that it had really mattered.

The man's costume was able to emit a large energy barrier that protected him from most attacks. After a barrage of fire that consumed half of the scooter's remaining mass, the barrier either ran out of power, or Ajax had simply decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Further attacks met the next layers of his defenses, reactive armour panels positioned across both of his arms, both of his legs, and his front and back plates. Seven layers of defense—each worthy of the ancient Greek hero—in normal situations it would have been able to sustain itself against all sorts of attacks.

The main problem was that his second-through-seventh layers were all physical objects. Which meant they were all parts of the whole that was Ajax's armour itself. It was also _heavy_ armour.

One touch from Evan and the whole thing became a mass of metallic alloys that solidified all of the armour's formerly flexible joints and completely restricted Ajax's movements and encased him in a stiff shell that covered everything but his face. Unable to move, unable to _stand,_ Ajax was very much out of the fight.

Evan's victory posturing was interrupted by a spherical formation of snow the size of a wrecking ball slamming into him from the side. He was bowled over by the impact, skidding several metres before he halted his uncontrolled tumble and got his feet back underneath him.

He slapped one hand against the ground, turning towards the direction the snowball had been fired from. A portion of the street itself warped and rose into the air as he pivoted. He was met with a horizontal snowfall, a barrage of snowflakes that did nothing but hinder his vision. A police car suddenly dropped into a small sinkhole that had opened up beneath it as the street-dragon belched fire, evaporating the snow flurry in front of him.

He stumbled again as he was struck from behind. He managed to keep his hand against his newest creation long enough to turn it around and shoot blindly in the direction of this new assault, but a clump of snow rose into the fire stream's path and snuffed it out, long enough for the pressure against his back to tear him free from the structure, rendering it inert.

His hands were quickly pulled behind his back and cuffed together. After a few more moments to make sure he was secured, the person kneeling on top of him stepped away. Several police officers moved forward to haul him to his feet, but he paid them no attention. Instead his glare was focused on the girl in the white cloak who was just now walking around him.

Ajax's sidekick. He hadn't even remembered she was there, so focused he'd been on her boss. Ajax had drawn his complete attention whilst his subordinate had prepared her attack. The older hero probably hadn't quite expected his defenses to fall so easily, but it had still worked. He was impressed, in spite of himself.

He watched as the female cape kneeled beside her boss and he grinned, even as the police officers manhandled him into a squad car. Ignoring the normals' various questions and commands, he slouched against the back seat and listed out his options. _Now then... how can I turn this to my advantage?_

...

* * *

"You set another garden on fire."

Wu Lung was startled out of his nap as a stack of papers dropped onto the table in front of him. Eyeballing the pile, he groaned as he calculated the time it would take to fill all of the sheets out.

"When we arranged your parole, it was with the understanding that I would be doing everything within my power to curtail your more dangerous habits," Flurry continued.

"Aww, c'mon," Wu protested. "That garden was already a mess. Weeds everywhere. It was the only way to be sure."

"Unfortunately for you, the owner does not share your conclusions." Flurry sat down in the chair across the table with a much shorter stack of paperwork in front of her. She flipped the first page over to glance at the reverse side. "The bounty for this capture is only £700. The cost of removing debris and replanting the garden comes to around £940. I will inform you now that I am _not_ going to be contributing my share for your mistakes."

"Nine-hundred and... you've got to be _kidding_ me! You just need a bunch of flower seeds and water!"

"Then perhaps you would like to contribute your own gardening expertise towards its recovery?"

Wu glared at Flurry, but she met his eyes without flinching. In all the time since he'd met her, he had never once seen her face smile, frown, or emote _anything_ period. The first time she'd taken off her mask in front of him, he'd thought he had managed to annoy her so completely that her face had gone beyond fury and straight into the indifferent _flatness_ he soon learned was her default expression.

Wu knew he was not a handsome man. He had thick eyebrows, narrow eyes, and a mouth seemingly set in a perpetual frown. He knew—from the reactions of people around him and also looking into a mirror when he was younger—that with a slight shift of his mouth and brows he could present the impression of uncontrollable fury, enough to make even the most courageous of men shy away from him briefly.

Except Flurry had never seemed to notice. Not even when he got in her face, screaming at her from the top of his lungs. She regarded him steadily in the same manner she regarded the cuddliest child. Except Wu was pretty sure even the cuddly child would be unnerved after being subjected to that inflectionless stare for any lengthy period of time. He was almost glad she wore that featureless, white mask out in public.

He sighed and broke the stare first, shuffling through his papers in an attempt to look busy.

Flurry didn't acknowledge his surrender, simply continuing from where she had left off. "I have already sent a memo to your trust fund. They will be managing the transfer of your assets to the landowner."

_"Fine."_

"I would ask that you find an alternative means to utilise your abilities. Something less destructive."

"I could shoot out shiny sparks instead. That would keep enough material intact to... I don't know—use my dragons as a shield or bludgeon things to death."

"Aside from the 'to death' part, that seems like an acceptable alternative."

"You're serious."

"I'm not Sirius, I am Sunny."

"You're... what?" Wu glanced up and found Flurry looking uncharacteristically flustered. At least he assumed that's what it was. She wasn't exactly wiggling around uncomfortably or twisting her mouth in embarrassment. An outsider might not even have noticed the miniscule change in her expression.

"I—ah... forgive me." She said. "That phrase reminded me of... someone I used to know. She liked to read... I mean, it was a reflexive..." She abruptly rose from the table and retrieved her mask. "Excuse me."

Wu blinked in surprise as Flurry suddenly retreated from the room. Then blinked again as he took in the stack of papers left on the conference table. He scowled.

_"Fucking A..."_

...

* * *

"Another one?" Wu frowned at the printout. "Don't we have enough people as it is? This place isn't exactly Villain Central. And we're already barely making ends meet with this guy dragging us down." He turned his head to regard the third person in the room. "No offense."

"None taken," Volley replied distractedly, his focus on the laptop in his lap.

"He is relatively inexperienced and his abilities are not sufficient for him to be able to make it on his own," Flurry said. "He claims he is local and he knows the area well. I believe his skill sets will complement our own nicely."

"What does he do?" Wu said.

Flurry opened her mouth, paused, and closed it. "I think it would be easier to understand if you see it for yourself." She half turned towards the door. "Do you have any further objections?"

Volley shrugged. Wu folded his arms and looked towards the ceiling.

_"Fine,"_ he said. "I'll see what the kid can do before I pass judgement."

Flurry left the room and returned with a young boy barely out of his teens. He wore a light-coloured jumpsuit, but unlike the other heroes he completely eschewed protective headgear or even a mask. Instead he wore a scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, raised just high enough to cover his mouth—although the fact that he was a good head or two shorter than everyone else in the room made that somewhat useless. Finally, he was either attempting a Superman-Clark Kent version of a disguise, or he had nothing to replace his glasses with.

"Worst. Costume. Ever," Wu instantly decided.

"Hey! I _designed _this costume! Show some respect!" the irate voice was high-pitched and Wu nearly re-categorised the newcomer as a young girl, right until he noticed the blue... _thing_ floating through the door behind him.

"Bwa?"

"Eloquent as ever, Wu," Volley said, looking up from his laptop. "What's your name, kid?"

"Erm," the newcomer said. "Codename or real name?"

Volley's head lolled around his neck—his replacement for an eye-roll whilst his helmet was on—and extended his hand. "Volley. Pleased to meet you."

"Looking Glass," the teen said, taking the hand and pumping it once. _"Yoroshiku_, er, please take good care of me," he said with a slight bow.

Wu scoffed. "Great, a Kyushu refugee."

"Wu Lung," Flurry's tone was admonishing.

Looking Glass flushed slightly. "Actually, I was born here... but my parents lived there when they were younger. They moved here before it sank."

"The impolite one, as I'm sure you've gathered, is Wu Lung. I assume you're already familiar with Flurry over there," Volley said. He waved his hand towards Looking Glass. "So who's the pretty lady there?"

"I'm Jamie!" the little sprite chirped, preening slightly.

Wu arched an eyebrow, surprised that the thing had answered for itself. "Master-classification?" he hazarded.

"Something like that," Looking Glass replied.

"So, what can it—_she_—do?" Wu asked.

"Er, well, as you can see, she can communicate on her own. So if I wanted to I could send her next door and have a conversation with anybody I find over there." Looking Glass shrugged and scratched the back of his head. "We can share sight and hearing with each other. Basically anything I know, she'll know."

"And what can _you_ do?"

"I, er... not much at the moment. I've signed up for some personal self-defense classes at my school, it's almost like their version of P.E."

"Hmm," Volley rubbed his chin, intrigued. "Your, ah—Jamie, was it? How far can she go?"

"Uh, I'm not sure, actually. I've generally kept her relatively close to me in the past, but I know we're good for at least a few hundred metres." He shrugged. "I could find out?"

"Interesting." Volley glanced at Flurry and nodded. "I'm sold, Boss-lady. My sensor packages are still a work-in-progress; I wouldn't mind having a second pair of eyes to play spotter for me."

Flurry nodded and turned to look at Wu.

Wu pointed towards the door, "In private?"

Looking Glass seemed to deflate slightly with disappointment.

Flurry simply nodded again and stepped outside. Wu followed her out and then went down the hallway into a second conference room. He stood there, facing the table until Flurry closed the door behind them, and then spun around.

"You want him for his ghost-thingy, don't you?" he asked without preamble. "And I don't mean just because she _is_ his power."

Flurry froze, then slowly nodded. She reached up to pull her mask away, revealing a face the other two—or three—people would assume to be completely expressionless.

Evan pulled off his own helmet and ran a hand through his hair. "She reminds you of..."

"Yes." Flurry didn't elaborate—she didn't have to. They'd gone through similar discussions in the past, many times over.

Evan sighed. "Flur—Elaine... you have _got_ to let this go. It's been _years_."

"I _can't_ forget," Elaine said, staring down at her hands. "I'm reminded of it every day. It was my fault."

"Bullshit," Evan countered. "It was an _accident_. Anyhow, I'm not asking you to forget about it. Just... don't let the memory control you."

Elaine closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her waist. "... I'll—I will try," she whispered.

Evan placed his hand beneath her chin and raised it so that she was facing him. He waited until her eyes opened before he spoke again. "Now, tell me what you _think_, not what you _feel_. Use that brain you're so proud of. Do we need this kid? I'm sure Ajax is still looking for a new sidekick to mentor."

Elaine closed her eyes again as she pondered the question. Evan waited a minute. Two minutes. Finally she opened her eyes again and nodded. "He'll be useful."

Wu snorted and stepped back, pulling his helmet back over his head. "I'll believe it when I see it," he said.

...

* * *

_Stratod...ncer down,GH-2. Melon Kali dec...ed,GH-2._

Wu Lung decided that these armbands were worse than useless. He'd heard so many great things about them—how they improved coordination between the coalition of capes and acted as emergency beacons for the fallen or the injured.

At any other time, it might have done so. Against Behemoth... well, either he had control over whatever radio waves these things functioned off of, or the energy he was putting out interfered with them. So, communications were mostly a bust. What few messages that did come through were lists of the casualties.

Wu couldn't speak for anyone else, but that did not strike him as being good for morale.

Their group had been split up. He and Flurry were part of the shielding teams, Volley had been tasked with his favorite role of long-ranged suppressive fire. Glass was even further from the frontlines, using J as communications and tracking.

_At least he's finally good for something,_ Wu thought uncharitably.

To be fair, Glass and J had both proven their worth on several occasions. For the most part, however, Wu felt that they were merely a slight improvement over the working strategy that he, Flurry, and Volley already contributed to their team. So _what_ if they'd found their targets in roughly half the time they _usually_ spent hunting them down? Looking Glass did nothing to help with the actual takedowns.

Here, he was even more useless. Except for the fact that even the short-range transceivers Volley had been so proud of were glitching up, J would have been out of a job.

Eyjafjallajökull—_How the fuck do you pronounce that?_—was a completely unpopulated mass of rock and ice. Nobody knew why the Endbringer had chosen to strike here, although apparently his movements under the crust had triggered the volcano that was at the centre of the ice cap. The ash clouds had grounded airports all across Europe.

_'I've inconvenienced Humanity for a few months, go me!'_

A shout went up from several capes with ranged-viewing capabilities and word quickly spread down the line. The Endbringer was approaching their defense line. As he waited patiently for his orders, Wu wasn't surprised to see an electric blue backdropped against the ash clouds, diving towards their position.

"Hey!" J said as she slowed to a hover. "Um, the Beemer is approaching, somebody said ee-tee-aye four minutes or so. So uh... people behind you are getting ready to shoot him. You might want to put up shields."

"I would never have imagined," Wu said dryly. "_Thank you_, J."

Flurry's mask turned towards him briefly before she returned her attention to J. "Acknowledged," she said.

"Anytime!" the little sprite chirped. She flickered away, repeating her time estimates and the orders to capes further down the line.

Flurry began summoning snow from the air several metres in front of them, packing it as tightly as she could even as more and more snow began to gather. A nearby cape—he thought he'd seen her arrive with that group of American heroes—began reinforcing the walls with sheets of ice, forming a rough framework and extending it even further along to the sides.

Wu dropped into a crouch and planted his hand against the earth. Volcanic rocks were in abundance, but most of them ranged between medium sized boulders and sand-like pebbles. He began constructing his dragon, starting from several palm-sized rocks. He sacrificed portions of their mass to melt the surrounding rocks and add them to the main structure.

His armband crackled with static at the same time that shouts rang out from somewhere behind him and he saw several energy barrages lance out towards the approaching monstrosity. Most of them were absorbed or redirected by the dynakinetic.

As Behemoth approached closer Wu could see several smaller shapes circling him. Mover-class capes on harassment duty trying to delay him. Several forked lightning bolts shot out from the Endbringer and he saw several dots plummeting to the ground it their wake. His armband crackled with each successive lightning strike, but the transmissions weren't clear enough to make out any words.

Suddenly there was a bright flash and a glowing line connected Behemoth to a rocky ridge off to its side. A split second after the line began to fade, a gout of flesh and blood erupted from Behemoth's side and a loud _crack_ filled the air.

Behemoth paused briefly and Wu noticed Flurry and the ice cape redoubling their efforts to increase the size and strength of their barrier. He belatedly did the same—he had his construct dig itself deeper into the earth and began absorbing rocks and boulders deeper within the ice cap as well as spreading it out, continuously adding more and more mass to his soon-to-be-dragon.

Another light flared up from the ridge accompanied by the loud _crack_, but this time there was no explosion in Behemoth's skin. Instead, a white-hot, glowing projectile hovered in mid-air for several brief moments as Behemoth absorbed its kinetic energy, then it shot back the way it had come, just as fast.

The projectile slashed through the ridge, breaking off a large chunk and starting a rockslide down towards the base of the mountain. The armband crackled. No more shots fired from the remains of the cliff face.

Behemoth resumed his course towards the defensive line.

Fire poured continuously at the Endbringer from the formations behind them, yet most of it was absorbed, redirected, or—in a few cases—reflected. The returned shots impacted shields and barriers setup by their defensive lines. As the Endbringer drew closer, so did the amount of reflections sent back to the capes firing them.

Barriers went up, barriers fell. Shields were rebuilt and reinforced. Still pressed against the ground, Wu Lung commanded his rock-dragon to _rise_.

An enormous, Asiatic dragon of ebony lifted itself free of the ground, rearing back as the Endbringer approached. Wu commanded it to coil up in front of him, his hand resting against its tail. He saved every shred of mass that he could, condensing the rock until it was almost half of its original size, yet almost denser than diamond.

His dragon snapped its head to the side, catching a reflected laser beam before it could continue any further. The laser gouged out a small crater, but the head remained mostly intact. The small pieces of rock that fell from the impact were far heavier than anything their size had a right to be.

Even as the head reeled away from the force of the laser's impact, another coil rose into the air to catch a projectile bolt. Another explosion as the energy of the impact chipped away at the dragon's body.

Swaying back and forth, from side to side, sometimes spinning in place to intercept the various beams and other energy strikes... his dragon _danced_.

Behemoth stepped in closer.

A lightning bolt flashed out, instantly blowing through the carefully constructed barriers of capes several hundred metres away. The armbands crackled. The ground in that area smoked and no new barriers rose to take their place.

Another lightning bolt, this one caught by the Dancing Dragon. Its head shattered with the energy, sending small but massive shards of rocks flying everywhere. The armbands crackled.

Wu Lung winced.

Another lightning bolt. And another. And _another._

One such bolt instantly evaporated Flurry's and the ice cape's barrier, grounding itself between them. The earth exploded with rocks and other debris. Wu ducked behind the tail of his dragon and heard scrapes and pings as debris bounced off of its surface. The American cape hastily erected another ice wall between herself and the explosion but was still thrown to the ground as it imploded.

Flurry was blown backwards by the impact. He might have imagined it, but Wu thought he heard several sharp cracks as jagged rocks impacted her body. He definitely did not imagine the spray of red as her left arm all but _shattered_.

Their armbands crackled. Neither Flurry nor the ice cape rose to their feet again.

Wu Lung might have screamed. He might have cried. He might have gotten to his feet, climbing onto the back of the remains of his Dancing Dragon. He might have marched it forward, gathering more material as he closed the distance between himself and Behemoth. Nobody was paying close enough attention to know for sure.

He might have been watched by an electric-blue spectral ghost-type-thing screaming his name at the top of her lungs. But that's silly, she didn't have any lungs.

What _is _known is that Wu Lung went head-to-head against the strongest Endbringer—the Hero Killer himself—with a 50 tonne Dancing Dragon of volcanic rock.

He had... less than spectacular results.

**ooo  
**

* * *

.

.

.

* * *

He hated this city. The buildings were all too short and there weren't enough lights to go around. Most of it was rough stonework, hardly any concrete or plastic to be seen. The locals called the architecture 'quaint' and 'historical'. He called it 'old-school trash'.

In a another life, things went slightly... differently. In a another life, Evan didn't run into any sneaky sidekicks. He did run into a bunch of drunk braggarts... and beat them up. He ran up against a local hero and beat _him_ up. The rest of the Bristol heroes didn't quite like that and after several months of continuous fighting he was forced to cut his losses and flee across the estuary. Cardiff didn't much like him either so he'd decided to head somewhere a bit smaller.

The latest town he'd found himself in was even more _quaint_ than the others, with even older buildings. He didn't just hate it, he _loathed_ it.

But it beat getting chased around by the various heroes in the larger cities. Granted, there was one hero in the out-of-the-way areas somewhere, but he was just a Tinker, and Tinkers never lasted very long against his power. They didn't like their equipment disintegrating into flames for some reason.

The guy had still put up a decent fight. Apparently he was a Tinker that enjoyed long-ranged combat and Wu had a devil of a time trying to track him down whilst he was being continuously sniped at. But in the end he ran out of materials before Wu did, and departed for parts unknown shortly afterwards.

Their battlefields had more or less become Wu's territory, with all of his various dragons littering the streets. It was then that Wu remembered a truism of life—people were jerks. They enjoyed stepping on those who were weaker than they were just for the sheer hell of it. If they found someone too strong, a group of them would just band together to take them out.

The solution was simple, he just had to become the _biggest _jerk around. One by one, he squashed the various gangs and crews in the area, driving them into the neighboring areas or assuming control over them. He'd learned his lesson from Bristol, however, and did everything he could to keep the territory running _just_ well enough that he wouldn't attract attention from the capes operating in the surrounding areas.

Most of the residential areas he left completely untouched. He'd organised his new gangs to clean up the streets after his brief war. Only the various warehouses and industrial buildings were left to be his groups playgrounds. They reacted swiftly to any intrusions from other gangs, sometimes Wu would take the field himself and scare them all shitless.

It was during one of these raids that he first met Elaine Thompson—or 'Sunny' as she was generally referred to by the people around her. She ran some sort of store that catered to poor people, it seemed. She was well-liked in the community, donated to charities, all of that feel-good bullshit.

It seemed like a good idea at first. What better way to trick the heroes into thinking he was _helping_ the community he had taken over? So he'd brought out the muscle and marched in, determined to put forth his _special_ form of negotiation.

Wu was no stranger to combat injuries. He had been bludgeoned, he'd been shot at, he'd been electrified, punched, he'd suffered all sorts of interesting injuries. But try as he might, he had never recalled ever being _slapped_ before.

He'd taken the place over anyhow. He'd placed the building and the area around it under his protection, marking the new boundaries. A few workers had fled, but for the most part the staff stubbornly stayed in place. A few of them even gave him and his representatives the respect they'd deserved.

But not Sunny.

They'd developed a working relationship of sorts. She verbally harassed him at every visit, belittling all of his accomplishments as if he hadn't done a decent thing in his entire life. He stoically took it all in as part of a stubborn effort to show her that he was not the common street thug she was painting him as, then professionally and reasonably reiterated his case for absorbing her little collective into his fold.

He still got slapped a few times every now and then. Even on the occasions when he ran off various gangs from her business, she still stubbornly refused his advances. She was grateful for his interventions, although her gratitude merely extended to slightly harsh language rather than her holier-than-thou rants.

Some of his minions thought the whole affair was amusing. A few of them teased him about it to his face. He set their clothes on fire. He never heard another peep on the subject.

...

* * *

A pair of minio—_sentries_—entered the building he used as his headquarters and immediately began jabbering their reports to him. In Scottish... or something. He couldn't tell. He glanced over at his lieutenant of the day and found him nodding as they spoke.

"What the fuck are they saying?"

The other man looked startled for a moment before his expression shifted into chagrin. "Oh, sorry, sir. Um, apparently there's an intruder."

Wu stared at the man for a few moments, waiting for the punchline. When nothing else came out, he rolled his eyes. "Yes... I can tell we have some sort of intruder, because I remember sending these guys out for that very purpose—I don't suppose you can _describe_ the intruder?" He turned towards his sentries directly.

One of them opened his mouth—

"In English, if you would," Wu interrupted him, rolling his eyes. "Are you people Brits or _not?_"

The sentry clammed his mouth shut and all three underlings gave him a pitying look.

He didn't like that look. He tapped his fingers against his gauntlets pointedly. _"What?"_

"Erm, it's nothing, sir."

"It's just one person, a woman," the first sentry said in English. "She was asking to speak with you."

He frowned and held up a hand just below his brow. "About yeah-high, short-haired brunette?"

"I think so."

Wu hesitated. This was _unprecedented_. Sunny had never once deigned to visit his lair. Until now he hadn't even realised she knew where it was. "Did she look... happy? Neutral? Pissed off?"

"_Very_ pissed off, sir."

_Great._ Wu sighed. "This'll be fun, go ahead and send her in."

Several minutes later, Wu was slouched comfortably in his favorite chair as he waited. He hadn't bothered with his helmet—his higher-level members already knew what he looked like, as did their guest. The door clicked open as Sunny was led into the room, followed by his lieutenant. The teasing remarks he had prepared to open the conversation with died on his lips as he noticed her expression—and her condition—and he involuntarily straightened in his seat.

She raised a bruised arm to jab a finger at him. "If you had _anything_ to do with this, then parahuman or not _I will find a way to rip you into shreds_." Her words were slightly slurred, a large bruise on her cheek had swelled up and she was forced to speak around it.

"I... er, _what?!"_ Wu gaped in surprise. Had there been an attack on her store? He'd not received any reports from his scouts to suggest such a thing. Even if there had been, she wasn't scheduled to work there today... not that he kept track of such things.

Sunny visibly deflated when presented with his rather obvious bewilderment. She glanced around the room, then turned a tired stare towards him. "May I have a chair, please?"

His lieutenant swiftly retrieved a chair from a side-room—promotion for that guy—and she collapsed into it, obviously worn out from... whatever had happened to her.

"Do I need to see the other guy?" Wu asked.

"I know you and I haven't always seen eye to eye," Sunny said, ignoring his quip. "You like hurting people, I'd prefer to help them—we have our differences and I doubt we'll ever be able to resolve them."

"That's one way of putting it," Wu agreed.

"You've always wanted me to join your organisation willingly. I've never understood why. My food bank is all but yours anyhow, but you keep _pressuring_ me." Sunny glared at him, as if demanding to hear his reasons.

Wu spontaneously decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He shrugged noncommittally.

Sunny's glare softened into a pointed stare, then she closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands. "My sister's been kidnapped," she finally said. "I don't like to ask for favors, so I hope you'll appreciate what I'm doing right now."

She raised her face slightly, though she kept her eyes focused on the floor in front of her. Wu idly noted that she was distraught enough to actually use _contractions_.

"I'm _begging_ you. Help me find my sister and bring her home in one piece. Do this—" Sunny slowly, stiffly returned her body to an upright position and squared her shoulders. She closed her eyes and winced slightly as she stretched out various bruises and kinks, but opened them once again to bore into his. "Do this, and I'll do _anything _you ask of me."

The reality of just how important this was to her made Wu Lung cough nervously. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, then leaned forward and propped his head on his fists. "Tell me everything."

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)**__—this will most likely be my longest interlude. it's not that i like this character over any of the others, but he just has the most backstory that i wasn't really able to explain in the main narrative. (although now given how much i'm sorta revealing for flurry... i'm starting to worry about what's left that i can put in _her_ interlude...)_

_some people wanted an explanation of wu's powers and why they seemed different between the worlds. if it wasn't clear, their powers are exactly the same... they're just using them differently. bits and pieces of the power have been explained... although their use wasn't fully described. i'd like to think you readers can figure out why the latter is the case._

_comments? thoughts? let me know!_


	15. Reflection 3-01

**Reflection 3.01**

* * *

_"The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become." —Ashley Montagu_

* * *

Emptiness.

Nothing to see but an infinite black void. Nothing to hear but an echoing silence. Nothing to touch but... well, there was nothing to touch.

"Hello?" My voice had an echoing-quality, as if I were in the middle of a wide-open room with nothing around me but distant walls. I didn't hear it, _per se_, but I could _feel_ it—as if it were ripples in the air that I could perceive. It wasn't quite sight, it wasn't quite sound, but it was there.

"Hey there, _Big Brother._" A familiar voice sounded out from behind me, trailing off into an odd tone towards the end of the greeting.

I didn't spin around, because doing that would imply that I had a body to rotate. Whatever I did, my perspective seemed to flip and I saw Jamie. Well, I didn't _see_ her, see her, but I—well, let's just say that she was _there _and I acknowledged that fact.

It still didn't hurt to make sure. "Jamie?"

I had the impression of her rolling her eyes at me. "_Yes._ Who else would you find here?"

"I don't know. It depends on where 'here' is."

"The Darkness."

The Darkness. Before Jamie had recovered from her coma, she had been more or less trapped within her body whenever we were in her world. The absolute sensory deprivation had been a huge contrast to the freedom she had enjoyed as a ghost, so much that she had loathed the time when it came for me to turn in for the nights.

"_'...and if it had been me in her place, I would have been driven stark, raving mad'_," Jamie recited. She paused briefly, as if assessing me. "That _is_ what you were about to say in your inner monologue, right?"

"Is that what this is about?" I asked. "That you're—oh Jamie, I am _so_ sorry..."

"Oh hush," she growled. "I'm not insane. I'm made of tougher stuff than that. I'm perfectly fine—if anything, I'm _better_ than fine."

"...which is exactly what a mentally disturbed person would be saying, in your place," I pointed out.

_"My point is,"_ she said, ignoring my comment, "is that all problems can be overcome. So you shouldn't be worrying about me."

"What is it that I should be worrying about, then?"

Her presence paused briefly, as if she was considering her next words. "I lost everything, you know," she finally said.

"What?" I blinked at the sudden change in topic.

"I was in a _coma_ for over a dozen years, James. I lost my freedom. I lost the ability to do whatever I'd wanted, whenever I wanted. I lost my friends, my schooling, _my life_."

"Well, actually about your education, that's why I tried to keep you listening in on my classes—"

"_Shut it._ That's really the least of my problems, I'm just trying to be comprehensive. Anyhow... I lost my _parents_ and I've lost the ability to walk. But you know what? It's okay."

"No, it's _not okay,_" I said. "It's not right, and you shouldn't have had to suffer like this, I _get _that. I'm trying to help you!"

"I don't _need_ your help! That's what I'm trying to tell you. I can manage, honest! It's like how they talk about people who've become blind. They say some of their other senses get stronger, or they at least learn to focus them a bit more to make up for their missing senses."

I had nothing to say to that, not in the face of Jamie's casual tone. She didn't sound bitter, or even upset. That by itself sent shivers down my spine.

"I've spent a long time thinking about this," she said. "Ever since I became aware of just what was _really _going on. It's like they say, I'm just... differently-abled. We're both remarkably similar in most aspects, but like two different sides of a coin. You can walk, run, and fight—let's say you're more physically capable than I am. By the same token, I have better control over our powers, better awareness—I appear to be stronger _mentally._"

"What?"

"_Think_ about it, when's the last time you were able to read anything from me that I didn't want you to?" I felt a flicker of amusement from her, but given what she had just said I had trouble taking it at face value. "On the flip side, when I say that I can read you like an open book, I don't mean that you're incapable of dissembling—although to be honest, you really are bad at that. But I can _read_ you.

"I've spent the last twelve years living inside your head, James. While you had to split your attention between your normal life and dealing with me, _all_ of my time was spent dealing with you. It was my _job_ to see the things you kept missing, so you never really managed to identify your blind spots and fix them up. Every night, I was locked in _here_, in the Darkness, and I spent every moment looking for a way out of it. Any skill needs to be exercised and practised in order to become useful, I've just been practising using my head a bit more than you have."

"I... I don't understand," I said. Oh, I understood the 'brains versus brawn' argument, that was an obvious point in hindsight and might have even explained how her mind's control over her legs had atrophied. It had rewired itself to meet the demand her activities had imposed in her spectral form, dropping the 'unused' pathways that she never got to utilise in her physical body. But as to the rest of it...

Jamie sighed. "You _don't _understand, James. You never have. What I'm saying is, I don't need you to baby me or even _take care _of me. I'm as fully capable as you are of living my own life. But you... for as long as we've been together, you've kept me in the dark." Her presence flared briefly, as in taking the whole of the Darkness around us. "_Literally._ I had to _force_ my way out just to regain _some_ sensation during my nights. Because you _blocked_ me. Because you wanted to _protect_ me."

"Okay, I get it," I said. "I'll try—I won't try to keep you out of the loop anymore. But you must understand, Jamie, I was only trying to do what was best for you. It's only natural. After all, I'm your big broth—"

"_Why_ are you my Big Brother?" she demanded. "We're counterparts—twins if you will. Are you the older one because we were in _your_ world first? Does that make me the Big Sister when you're in mine, then?"

Her presence flared again, then dimmed rapidly as if she were slightly exhausted from her ranting. "I want us to be on the same page too, James, to be on equal footing with each other. I don't want either of us to hold an advantage over the other."

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed.

"So, I had an _idea,_" an odd lilt crept into her voice and I shivered involuntarily. "I've had to learn and flex my mental muscles by figuring out how my mind worked and how to bypass your blocks. You wanted to know where we were, James?"

"...yeah?"

"Well, we're still in the Darkness, that hasn't changed. But more to the point, we are in _your _world. In your body, actually. I've just put in a few mental blocks of my own into your head so you can't wake up on your own."

"Wait, what?" I began giving myself the command to _wake up, WAKE UP!_ As before, when I had been trying to duplicate Jamie's feat of crossing over between her bodies, I had no clue as to what I was doing. "Jamie! This isn't funny!"

"It's not supposed to be." She actually sounded regretful, but again, without knowing what she was really thinking or feeling, I couldn't take it at face value. I felt utterly betrayed by her actions. I felt like my trust in her had been for naught.

"Don't be like that," she whispered. "This it to _help _you. It's going to make you stronger, in the long run."

"Jamie," I said, horrified. "I've no idea what you're trying to do, but—"

"No, you _don't_ understand," she said sadly. "But I'll _make_ you understand... and once you do, we can be _equals _again. We'll be brother and sister again, if you still want us to. But here, I'll do what you didn't—I'll give you a little hint."

Without any other warning, I felt as if a hole had been ripped open within the fabric of my being. Even as I reeled from the sudden pain, a brightness flared into existence far out in the distance, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

"Even as close as we are, my mind still works a bit differently than yours does," Jamie said conversationally. "So I had to guess how this would work for you, I hope it wasn't too unpleasant." She 'waved' towards the distant light. "If you can figure out a way through that gap on your own, you should be able to wake yourself up again. I'd suggest you try to figure out what I did and make it work for you so it's not as uncomfortable in the future."

I gasped, partially from the remnants of the pain, mostly from the dismay I was currently feeling. "Jamie... why are you doing this?"

"Like I said, I wanted us to be on equal footing. Don't worry if it takes you a bit. I'm not cruel, I'm okay with giving some tips either here or when you're visiting me and Karen. _But._ You have to be putting in your best efforts to improve on your own. I'm not going to help you if you aren't even _trying._"

"How long is 'a bit'?"

She was silent for several moments. "I spent over ten years as your puppet, James. As I've mentioned already, I think it's only fair we share _all_ of our experiences."

Having made her pronouncement, I felt her presence retreating from my mind. And I was left alone.

**...**

* * *

The moment Jamie disappeared, I'd reflexively reached out to the link to search for her. But, like so many times in the past few days, I drew a blank. Either she was hiding herself even here in my world, which meant her mental strength was _way _beyond what I had imagined, or she had jumped back to hers.

Her world. _Karen._ Bits and pieces of yesterday afternoon floated towards the forefront of my consciousness. Events seemed to rush by in a blur, none of it made any sense to me whatsoever. People shouting, objects flying everywhere, scenery rushing by at incredible speeds. I had the feeling that everything would make sense if I could reach _just_ a bit further, but whatever the distance I was unable to cross it.

I felt torn. Part of me wanted to immediately jump on the possibility of escape. Being trapped in my own body did not seem to be my idea of fun—I'd already seen its effects on Jamie and I had no wish to go through my own version of 'sanity'. At the same time, I wanted to try to rush back to Jamie's world and find out if Sunny's sister was okay.

Well, if what Jamie had implied was true, then accomplishing the former should bring me closer to the latter. The question was figuring out how I should go about that. Jamie had given me a way out—literally—but knowing it was there and managing to 'get' over there was two different things.

I didn't have Jamie's apparent talent for navigating other people's psyches. I wasn't sure if 'breaking through' was a purely mental affair or if I had to apply my powers somehow. If I were completely honest with myself, I'd be questioning just how truthful Jamie had been with me. She was clearly unhinged to some degree, but how much I couldn't say.

One thing she _had_ been right about, however, was the fact that our minds worked differently. I still had no clue on how to approach the exit, but I could see her 'imprint' against the backdrop of my own mind. It was subtle, but noticeably distinct from my own thought patterns.

Just as I began to inspect it in detail, the mental impression I had identified as Jamie's seemed to swell slightly, then it abruptly evaporated into misty, ethereal traces that soon vanished.

I felt a thrill at first, thinking that I had beaten her little block, but then I realised that it couldn't possibly be that simple, or else she would never have been stuck for as long as she was in the first place. Then I felt a shred of horror, a sudden suspicion that she had never intended for me to wake up and had given me this false opening simply to toy with me.

My thinking was sidetracked, however, when the opening seemed to grow in size and brilliance, and I was swallowed in it's light. I had another brief moment of panic—about what, I couldn't say—and then I found myself back in the real world being roughly shaken awake by a firm hand.

_"—up, you lazy son! Get up! You sleep all day and now you expect me to allow you to sleep all night too?"_

I reflexively batted away my mum's hand, even as she got in a few extra slaps against my cheek. She switched to throwing my comforter away from the bed, a move my mind didn't protest, even as my body grumbled and groaned its disapproval.

_"A customer is asking for you,"_ she said as picked up a few stray articles of clothing and tossed them into the laundry basket._ "Clean up and get downstairs, as soon as you can."_

I blinked in surprise and not a little bit of confusion even as she exited my room. I patted my body down, then pinched myself to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or dreaming. Finally I glanced around, sweeping the room in an attempt to locate Jamie. I couldn't feel her presence anywhere, but neither could I spot her avatar.

_Well,_ I thought, s_he did say I just wouldn't be able to wake up 'on my own'..._

**ooo**

A few minutes later, having ran my head under the sink to wash up and throwing on some clean clothes, I stepped downstairs into the restaurant. The dinner rush had already passed so it was sparsely occupied, so I had no problem noticing a figure sitting off to the side, nearly half a room away from the next closest customers. He had pushed a chair away from a table in the corner in order to make room for his wheelchair.

He looked up as I approached, gave me a curt nod, then lifted the ceramic cup he'd been nursing in his hands and downed the contents in one gulp. He wore a displeased expression as he lowered the cup back to the table. "What kind of tea is this?" he complained. "I'd like to complain to the manager."

"It's green tea, Pete," I said as I slid into the chair opposite him. "And you shouldn't insult it. My mum brewed that."

"She can't brew up any _proper_ drinks around here?" Pete countered. His hand tapped the plastic menu that lay on the table beside his cup. "And what's with this stuff? It's all seafood."

I rolled my eyes. "You didn't come here to badmouth my pop's restaurant, Pete. I'm fairly certain you got it all out of your system the last time you were here."

"True," he admitted. He reached for the steel pitcher in the middle of the table and poured himself another cup. "I'm actually here to spy on you."

"Spy on me," I repeated blankly.

"Yep. I'm being all sneaky about it. Speaking of which, where is that little sneak of yours?"

I paused, casting my senses out again in a vain attempt to locate Jamie. "She's... not around right now. We're actually having a bit of a fallout at the moment, to be honest."

"Oh?" Pete wrapped his hands around the steaming mug, waiting for it to cool slightly before he drank any more. "What's going on with that?"

"You really missed your calling, Pete. You're too good at this. I'd never even have guessed you were trying to shake me down for information."

"You're dodging the question."

I ran a hand through my hair in exasperation. On one hand, I really didn't want to indulge Pete, even if he was obviously making a half-hearted effort at this. Flurry must have put him up to it. She'd seemed worried about me the last time I'd seen her.

Yet at the same time, I really _did_ need help. The problem was how I could obtain that assistance without fully explaining myself. I considered Flurry and Volley to be allies, possibly even friends, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to trust them with something this big.

But if not them, who else could I go to for help? My parents? The news about Jamie would crush them. And then they'd probably rip me a new one for letting it get so bad. On the other hand, they'd probably be willing to hide it so as to avoid troubles with the authorities...

"Hello, Earth to James." Pete had leaned forward and was snapping his fingers just in front of my nose. He leaned back as I started and shook my head. "What's going on in there? Having an argument with her? Tell her to get down here, we haven't traded greetings yet. I promise not to bite."

I shook my head. "It's not that... look, Pete, try not to take this the wrong way. But... I might need you to keep an eye on me when I'm asleep, at least for the next few days."

Pete immediately wheeled his chair away from the table. "_Whoa._ No. I don't know what brought this on but I can assure you—"

"Then get Elaine to do it," I said impatiently. "This is important, it's serious, and I already figure you're talking to her about me behind my back."

"Look, James, it's not like that." Pete held up his hands in protest, then paused and tilted his head. He nodded, "Okay, it _is_ like that but it was mostly her idea. She's just worried about how you're holding up now that you're on your own. She's just being mothering, it's no big deal."

I shook my head. "It's just... " I felt my shoulders slump as I made my decision. "Look, it's kind of difficult to explain, but I _really_ need your help. Both of you. Do you think we can meet up with Elaine tonight?"

Pete arched an eyebrow, but he reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulled out his phone. He tapped out a quick text, drinking his tea and wincing as he did so. Barely a minute later his phone vibrated in receipt of a message and he briefly glanced at it before pocketing it again. He shrugged. "She says she can meet us nearby. She gave me directions to a neighborhood not too far from here."

"Fair enough," I said, rising from my chair and waiting politely as he pushed his wheelchair back and manoeuvred it around the table. "Let me just grab my coat."

**ooo**

We were walking for only a few minutes when Pete suddenly spoke up. "Did you get a pet, or something?"

I didn't break my stride as I looked down at him quizzically. "What?"

Pete had placed a pair of glasses—almost like a visor—over his eyes that glowed faintly in the streetlights. He looked at me from one corner. "Motion tracker," he explained. "Hooked into a sensor in my chair. Low-key enough for most people to miss it. Looks like a cat is following us."

I rolled my eyes. "You're just paranoid," I complained, even as I reflexively reached out again for Jamie's viewpoint to augment my own. Force of habit. I sighed in frustration as nothing came through. "So, where is it?" I asked as I stopped in place and spun on my heel.

_*mew*_

I blinked as tiny kitten walked up to my legs, bold as brass, and stared up expectantly at me. "Eh?"

Pete hummed. "Cute kitty," he remarked. "It seems to know you."

I dropped into a crouch, looking it over with a critical eye. It _did _seem rather familiar... "Oh. I remember now. Jamie had found a box of abandoned kittens whilst we were on patrol a ways back. I guess this one survived." I couldn't help but reach out and run the back of my hand against its head briefly. The motion felt oddly familiar and the kitten accepted the petting with a pleased purring. "It _does_ seem to recognise me, if it followed me this far. It's funny, I don't recall seeing it at all after that one night."

"Well, send it home or bring it along. We haven't got all night," Pete reminded me.

"Um, sure." I reached out with my hand again, this time laying it against the ground, palm up, in invitation for the kitten to climb on. It stepped onto my hand and I reached out with my other to pick it up and hold it against my side. It burrowed itself into the crook of my arm and resumed purring.

I could feel a rather silly grin growing on my face—Jamie wasn't the only one who had a weakness for cute things, especially when they were literally in my face. The thought of her, however, reminded me of my dilemma and I quickly schooled my expression as I turned forward once more.

Pete decided to forgo any wisecracks as we continued towards Elaine's rendezvous point. I found myself unsurprised to find that it wasn't terribly far from Sunny's house in Jamie's world. It was far enough away from the other houses down the row to have a reasonably private conversation and there were trees and bushes enough to hide us from casual scrutiny.

Elaine was waiting for us as we arrived. She didn't appear at all bothered by the late hour or the sudden summons, although she did arch an eyebrow when she noticed the extra member of our entourage.

"James," she said by way of greeting. "Peter told me you wished to speak with the two of us. He implied that you had something of a situation that you were unable to handle on your own."

I threw a glance at Pete. "You type _fast_," I commented.

He shrugged and simply slouched in his wheelchair.

I looked back at Flurry—it was _hard_ to think of her by her civilian name—and braced myself. This wasn't just a personal matter. It was a problem that had spilled over to include innocents. It was time to put my personal feelings to the side and start thinking as a professional hero would. "It's... about Jamie," I admitted. "I haven't quite told you everything about her, or my power... and now some of it is coming back to bite me in the arse."

"Go on."

"Well, I guess I should start off by saying that Jamie, in some ways, is _me._"

Flurry and Volley traded glances, then Volley fished a small coin out of his pocket and flipped it towards her.

"—Except she's _not_ me."

Flurry threw the coin back.

"I sort of... called her from a parallel world. Jamie is the me from another world, with her own life..." I sighed, "and she _may _have gone... slightly bonkers."

Flurry and Volley traded another glance, then both turned to stare at me. Flurry, for once, seemed to be at a complete loss for words.

After several seconds of silence, Volley cleared his throat with a brief cough. "I think we're going to need to sit down for this."

"You are already sitting," Flurry commented.

"I need a beer."

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)—**__i kept starting and restarting this chapter, trying to find a good way to continue from where i left off. i have a rough outline of certain events that will be happening, but the devil is in the details. blarrrrgh._

_here's to hoping this way works!_

_read and review, please! :D_


	16. Reflection 3-02

**Reflection 3.02**

* * *

I explained as much as I felt was safe to do so. I told them about Jamie Shirakawa, distaff counterpart to James Shirakawa and the shared coincidences that had determined the course of our lives. I detailed most of her recent history—her emancipation, her perceived abandonment and the increasingly erratic behavior that resulted from that discovery. I explained how we had figured out the more subtle nuances of our powers and what we had done to experiment with them. I closed with an abbreviated version of the events that led up to Jamie's breakdown and her attack on Karen and Sunny.

I withheld certain details out of respect for Flurry, not knowing just how much of her personal life—what I had gleaned from having lived with Sunny—she'd be comfortable sharing. Instead I tried to generalise it into Jamie having simply lashed out against a pair of kindly strangers.

Volley hadn't gotten his beer, but by the time I was finished with my explanation he had one hand cradling the bridge of his nose as if nursing a headache. Flurry appeared to be completely unmoved, which was to say that she didn't look much different either way.

I felt my excitement begin to fade away, slowly replaced with dread as the two of them finished absorbing my tale.

"You don't believe me, do you?" I asked, looking back and forth between my former teammates.

"You're sort of talking about having accomplished something even _Haywire _wasn't able to," Volley pointed out, referring to the first Tinker to have broken the barrier between alternate realities. "By _accident_, no less."

"What do you mean?" I blinked in confusion.

"You're saying you've more or less found a way into an alternate Earth that's diverged barely... how old are you, nineteen or twenty years old?" Volley shook his head. "Haywire was at the top of his game and he couldn't create any apertures to worlds closer than thirty years of divergence from our own. It's pretty much accepted as common fact in the circles I walk—what you're talking about is _impossible._"

"I do not have any opinion on the possibility of an alternate dimension, one way or the other," Flurry said. "However, I am mostly concerned with the fact that what you are telling us is cannot be corroborated by any third-party evidence."

"Are you saying I'm lying?" I began heatedly. I couldn't help the surge in my emotions. Here I was, laying out my whole future and leaving it to the mercy of my best... friends? Allies? But they didn't _believe_ me?

Flurry shook her head. "I believe you are telling the truth as you see it," she said. "However, I am not so certain as to your state of mind." She gave me a somewhat pitying look. "You have not been acting like yourself these past few months, James. You have broken away from your usual patrol patterns by taking on a night-schedule. You have cut yourself off from your family by doing this, as well as having made it much harder for the both of us interact with you in any meaningful manner."

I opened my mouth, a protest on my lips that died as she raised her hand.

"I do not blame you for this. We have all been guilty of this to some degree or another. Each of us have been forced to deal with our grief in our own way. You seemed to have dealt with it better than the rest of us, but now I believe you were simply capable of hiding it better."

"Wha—?" I spluttered. "You think I've finally cracked to some form of post-traumatic stress? It's _real!_ Jamie's world is real. I'm there through Jamie. You're both there—well, Volley isn't but I'd heard rumours that he _used_ to be there. Bloody hells, _Wu Lung_ is alive there too!"

I immediately knew that was the _wrong_ thing to say if I was trying to show that I had been able to move myself past Iceland in a healthy manner. Both Volley and Flurry turned towards me with sympathetic expressions and I had to fight the urge to bite their heads off.

I tried a different tack. "Look, I'm fine with you lot not believing me about the parallel world part. Honestly, it's a load off of my shoulders. But Jamie really has gone a bit around the bend and I could use some help dealing with her."

Volley half raised his hand. "Does this have anything to do with why you wanted me to sleep with you?"

I felt my face flush even as Flurry gave him a curious look. "That's _not_ what I said—or meant. But yes, she's sort of gotten into my head and I'm worried that I wont be able to wake up on my own anymore. I think I'd need somebody else to bring me out of it and make sure I don't drop into my own coma."

"A result of this possession ability you attribute to her?" Flurry asked.

"Yes."

"The same possession ability you claim she herself told you about?"

"Right, she's demonstrated the ability to temporarily disable other humans she's tried to possess. But she can pretty much completely take over any creatures with relatively simple minds."

"Creatures like that kitten you've been holding in your arms this whole time?" Volley asked.

Like the—_oh._

I blanched and looked down, half afraid to find the kitten smirking at me with an unnaturally human-like expression. Instead I discovered that it had fallen asleep at some point during our discussion. As the three of us fell silent, it seemed to sense the change in mood and mewled piteously, reach out with one arm to bat against my chest. I absent-mindedly adjusted my posture and began scratching its head with my free hand, which seemed enough to quiet it back down.

Could this have been Jamie all along? I didn't sense her at all, but that wasn't exactly a brand-new occurrence. I shook my head and looked back up to find the other two watching me.

"If that's Jamie, she doesn't look like she's exactly in a hurry to up and claw us to death," Volley remarked.

"Peter," Flurry admonished him with a glare. She turned back towards me. "James, you may be correct. Or you may not be. One thing that I am certain of, however, is that you are currently under a great deal of stress. If you were still my responsibility, I would bench you."

She closed her eyes briefly in exasperation as Volley broke into a fit of coughing that sounded more like a well-hidden 'hah'. "As it stands right now, as someone who is simply concerned for your health, I would strongly suggest that you take a few days off and return to your normal schedule when you resume your duties."

"So that's it then?" I asked. "You're not going to do anything?"

"Even if you were being completely factual and truthful," Flurry replied, "what then? If Jamie is truly making trouble in a world completely beyond our reach, what could we possibly do to resolve that sort of situation?"

I slumped. "I don't know... I just thought you could do... _something_."

Flurry and Volley traded glances. Volley shrugged and twirled his finger around his ear and Flurry shook her head at his display.

"One of us will check back with you tomorrow," Flurry promised. "In the meantime, I suggest you attempt to reconnect with your family. Do something that is not cape-related and just _relax_. Can you commit to at least that much?"

"We'll see," I said glumly.

**ooo**

Volley had volunteered to walk me back home, though from the tone of his voice I assumed that the offer wasn't genuine, simply a continuation of his earlier joke. I declined, wanting to be alone with my thoughts.

Or not entirely alone. Although it wasn't until I had turned down the street to my parents' flat that the voice I had been expecting decided to show itself.

_That didn't quite go as I'd expected it to, but I'm not in a position to complain._

I slowed to a stop and glanced down my chest. The kitten stared back at me with a disturbingly knowing look and I shook my head. I started to lower myself to the street and reached out with one hand to pick it up by the scruff of its neck.

_Don't put me down,_ Jamie interrupted me. _This girl's too tired to walk anywhere, I don't think I've ever had her stay up this late before._ There was an almost imperceptible shift in the kitten's posture and then Jamie was floating before me, staring down at the kitten fondly. The kitten simply shifted in my arms slightly and promptly fell asleep again.

"Cute, isn't she?" she cooed.

"Adorable," I said flatly as I stood up again. "How'd you get her all the way over here from the downtown?"

"I carried her, of course," Jamie said, sounding affronted. "I'm not so cruel as to make a kitty walk the whole distance by her lonesome self."

"How did you carry—"

"Oh, and feel free to just bring her inside. Mama already knows about her. Sort of." Jamie looped around in midair and flew towards the restaurant. The main floor's lights were off, having been closed for some time, so she simply ascended to the second floor and floated through my bedroom window.

I followed her inside, taking the more mundane route through the restaurant on the ground floor. When I climbed the stairs, I found Mum staring at me—or rather, at the sleeping kitten in my arms—with a displeased expression.

_"I thought I had told you already,"_ she scolded me. _"The cat does not go through the eating area! Use your window if you want to bring it inside!"_

"Er... yes, Mum. Sorry," I said bewilderedly. She let me pass without any further complaints, instead heading downstairs muttering how she'd have to run the place over with a vacuum the next morning.

I stepped into my room to find Jamie grinning at me.

"Do I want to know?" I asked her.

She pointed towards a secluded corner of the room I rarely ventured and I was only half-surprised to find a small blanket-lined basket sitting there. I placed the still-sleeping kitten in the basket—in the room's light I noticed her fur was bicoloured, mostly black with a few large patches of white across her belly and face. I continued my inspection of the kitten for a few more moments before I turned my attention back towards Jamie.

We stared at each other for several long seconds. "I'm surprised you held back from—I don't know—attacking Flurry and Volley, claws deployed for... clawing," I said finally.

"I keep telling you that I'm not crazy, but do you ever listen? Nooo. To what purpose would attacking them have served me?" Jamie rolled her eyes and reclined in midair. "It'd leave me alone versus two others—three if you jumped in to help them. It would completely validate all of your claims in their eyes and they'd have no choice but to help you out." She threw a glance towards the corner of the room and let a soft, silly smile grow on her face. "Also the kitty would probably get hurt."

"What are you afraid of that you're willing to hide yourself from Flurry and Volley?" I demanded.

"Nothing," she said. "I've got nothing against Flurry. It's _Sunny_ and everyone else in my world that I've got a problem with. I'm _nothing _here, I get that. But I shouldn't have to be dependent on anything in the place where I _belong._ I shouldn't have to be forced to do anything I don't want to when there's actually something I can do about it."

She straightened up and slowly floated towards me, eyes focused completely on mine. "Mama and Papa left me because they didn't want to be responsible for me? Fine. I can be responsible for myself. Sunny keeps trying to decide things for me, like where I should live and what I should eat. I can make my own decisions. Karen likes being around me, I can tell. But Sunny doesn't want her being friends with me? I think I'll be the judge of that, too, in her place."

"I think she couldn't decide for herself because you knocked her out," I pointed out. "And that _was_ you. I may have been your instrument, but I'm starting to figure out when you're taking control over me."

"Are you? Do you really have the self-awareness to know when your will isn't your own?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm learning more every day, as much as I don't want to." I stabbed my hand towards the kitten's basket. "Just how long did it take you to get her used to my presence by hijacking my body?"

She brought her hands up and clapped slowly, although her hands made no sound. "Only a few days. She's young, only a few weeks I think. She imprinted fairly quickly, especially once I brought her here and gave her a warmer place to live than that box she had before. The harder part was getting her used to _my_ presence without running off too much. She actually probably likes you better than me at the moment."

"You brought her here, which is how Mum knows about her," I concluded, pinching the bridge of my nose. I sighed. "And you used _my_ body to do it, which is why she thinks I know. Is this why I've been feeling a bit tired these last few days?"

"I waited to bring it up until you were aware of her, but 'Jamie' isn't a bad name for her, don't you think?" she chirped, ignoring the last. "That way you can bring me along whenever you're out in civvies and I can use her as a disguise. The normals wont even think twice if you're randomly talking to your cat like a normal person, I hear lots of pet owners do that."

"Enough about the cat!" I exclaimed. "Jamie, can't you see that what you're doing is so far afield of common sense? Even if not that, then what about the fact that you're forcing a choice on your _friend_ that she might not approve of?"

"Karen will come around," she said with conviction. "She's just a bit surprised, possibly a bit uncertain, but that's just because everything had to happen so quickly. Sunny's really too domineering, I'm surprised she's stayed with her so long. It'll be good for her to get out from underneath her thumb."

I shook my head. "It's a bad job all around, if you ask me."

"Well, it's a good thing I _haven't_ asked anything of you," she said. Her eyes bored into mine. "What you need to understand is that I don't need you either, James. I'm not _dependent_ on you, I don't need to identify myself by my relation with you. I can be my own person. You need to back off and accept that."

"I can't do that, Jamie," I said sadly. "Like it or not, we're family. Misguided or not, I still feel like I have to protect you. And if that means stopping you from what you're doing, then so be it."

Jamie stared at me for several more moments, then finally glanced away. "We'll see," she said. "Have a nice sleep, James."

...

* * *

Jamie pulled her vanishing act fairly quickly after that. I found some pet food in the pantry and filled up a small bowl which I took back upstairs and left it next to the sleeping kitten. I hoped that Jamie had somehow house-trained her new pet, but otherwise I had more pressing concerns.

It was barely past midnight, far earlier than I normally went to be in my nocturnal schedule. I scribbled a quick note on a piece of scratch paper, a message to anyone coming to see me, telling them to wake me up in the morning—no matter what it took. After taping it to the outside of my bedroom door, I settled into my bed and simply lay there, hoping I could put myself to sleep using sheer boredom.

It worked... eventually. The transition was somehow more _noticeable_ than I had ever previously recalled it being, which was helpful because it took me several moments to realise that the darkness of my room had been replaced with a slightly different quality of darkness.

"Hey... "

My vision snapped back into focus, revealing a large room that had obviously seen better days. Dust, dirt, and cobwebs littered every wall and floor space and piles of some sort of semi-reflective material were bunched around the corner. An empty table stood in one corner, adjacent to an open door that looked like it led deeper into the abandoned structure. I quickly scanned the walls and found a tracked door that had rusted over. Some of the rust had been scraped from the rails, a sign that the door had been recently used.

I finally turned towards the source of the voice and nearly froze in shock. The room had no working lights nor windows and I hadn't noticed Karen in the relative darkness at first. She was sitting against one of six support pillars that ran from floor to ceiling, closest to the table and the inside doorway, tied in place with a length of rubber tubing around her arms and waist. Her glasses were missing and she slumped with obvious fatigue, but she stared at me out of the corner of one eye.

"Hey," she repeated. "Are you sane?"

"Sane?" I repeated blankly. I swept the room again, finding it oddly familiar although I couldn't quite place where I'd recognised it from. A thought suddenly occurred to me and my head whipped back towards the girl. "Have you been awake this _whole time?_"

"Oh, good," Karen said. "You're back. And no, I've caught a few naps here and there. Maybe I'll take another one now that you seem to have regained your senses. You're pretty creepy as an automaton, did you know that?"

"Back up, just back up," I said. "What's happened here?"

Karen glanced down at her restrained hands. "Well, offhand I'd say I'm a prisoner. Jamie wasn't saying anything, but you were doing all sorts of things... and you had this utterly _blank_ look on your face."

"...like there was no life behind it?" I guessed, remembering what Jamie's avatar had looked like when she wasn't all there.

"Yeah. Like I said, creepy." Karen gave me a wry grin. "I must ask, did I upset her somehow?"

"No, actually. If anything, I think she honestly believes she's _helping _you." I frowned at her. "You're taking this remarkably well."

"Oh, I'm absolutely terrified out of my wits," Karen admitted, still in that cheerful tone. "But I like to think I can snark my way out of anything. A coping mechanism, I suppose you could say."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"For what? I guess you could make the case that you weren't fully in control of your actions. In fact I'd say it's not a coincidence that you seem to have reverted to the nice, little ghosty I've come to know after Jamie went to bed." Karen closed her eyes and rested her head against the pillar behind her. "Please tell me I'm not going to turn into you. Lie if you need to."

"Er, what?"

"Are you one of her past victims? I'd really hate to think this of her, but she didn't kill you and turn you into... _that,_ did she?"

"_What?!_ No! No no no, Jamie's power doesn't work out like that at all."

Karen smiled, though she didn't open her eyes again. "Oh, that's a relief to know."

I tried to smile back, but simply taking in the situation around me killed any attempt before I could even start it. I shook my head to clear it, then pointed off to the side. "Um, I hope you don't think I'm abandoning you, but are you going to be okay if I head out to explore a bit?"

"Knock yourself out," Karen replied. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

I floated away at a slow pace, keeping an eye on her to make sure she'd really be okay. When she didn't do anything in response, I flipped myself around and began a quick tour of the building.

The internal doorway led to a small hallway that terminated in a pair of small rooms along one side, and a lavatory to the other. One of the rooms was completely empty, ignoring the random debris that cluttered the floor. The other had a small desk and a broken bed frame. The mattress had been tossed to the floor and Jamie's wheelchair was locked into place, her sleeping body sprawled along the dusty mattress itself.

The room that Karen had been tied up in was clearly the main area, the tracked door led outside to a relatively overgrown area. Sunny's car was parked outside, suggesting the means Jamie had used to bring herself and her 'totally-not-a-prisoner'-friend over here. The whole structure wasn't terribly far from a riverbank. That final detail twigged a memory that had me going back through the rooms and around the nearby woods to make sure. Although it was missing a waterwheel, there was no doubt in my mind that we were in the same location as Volley's hideout in my world.

I floated back inside, both pleased and disturbed by the information. On one hand, I had a relatively good idea of where we were so I knew that if I could somehow manage it, I could have Karen returned to her home. The problem lay in the fact that Volley had been more or less a recluse. He'd either specifically built this structure or repurposed an existing one for the sole reason that it was fairly distant from the rest of civilisation. The nearest house was beyond my tether range, so there was no way I could go out for help.

As I settled back into a watchful position over Karen, she spoke up in a conversational tone, though she let her eyes rest shut.

"So, what is the deal with you two, if you don't mind my asking?"

"What do you mean?"

"I normally try not to pry—it's sort of counter-productive when you're trying to get people to comfortable around you. But considering the situation I think I'm allowed a few indiscretions." She cracked one eye open to stare at me, though it was slightly unfocused without her glasses to help her. "What's the story behind you and Jamie?"

I thought back to Flurry and Volley's responses not a few hours ago and grimaced. "I doubt it's anything you'd believe," I said.

Karen didn't try to protest that, or insist that she'd understand no matter what. She didn't reply at all for a good several minutes, and when she did finally speak up again, it was with something completely different.

"I nearly died when I was younger," she said.

I blinked and looked over to find her staring directly at me. She was still slumped against the pillar, but her eyes were unusually serious and she was lacking her ever-present grin.

"Both of my parents had died when I was little," she continued. "My mum to an illness, my dad to a car accident. Sunny and I were raised by an auntie from my mum's side of the family, though she was a batty old hag and neither of us really liked her."

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said automatically.

She snorted at the expected trite, but didn't comment on it directly. "Auntie didn't much care for any sprogs of my dad—in fact the whole mother's side of my family seemed to hate him. She didn't pay too much attention to us, so Sunny pretty much had to do everything. One day when I was, oh... maybe eleven or twelve? We took a daytrip to York. Beautiful place, I'd recommend going there if you haven't. Except we went there in the winter. It was a pretty bad one, actually, I don't remember what made us think that was a good time to go."

"Cold?" I asked conversationally.

"Freezing, windy, and completely snowed in." She lifted her hands to about chest-height from her sitting position. "Snow on the streets up to this high, if you can imagine. An equal amount on the rooftops. So here we are, we've just crossed the River Ouse and ducked onto a side street, when all of a sudden a snowdrift slides off a nearby roof and falls smack dab on top of me. I'm just a lil' un, mind you. It knocks me out _cold._" She chuckled at her own little pun.

"And you survived?"

She patted her chest in several places, then looked at me and nodded. "Apparently so. It was a near thing, though. It was a _big_ roof and that was a lot of snow on top of me. Naturally I don't remember much of the actual event, but Sunny's never really forgotten it. She tried digging me out as soon as she realised what had happened. Auntie was useless, of course. She just sat to the side and screamed her head off. Worse, there was a whole street full of bystanders—regular folk going about their day—who simply stood by and watched."

Karen's eyes seemed to stare off into the distance. "Sunny thinks I would have died that day. Except my Auntie's screams seemed to have been _some_ use. Some homeless bloke heard her and ran over to help. Had a big, honking dog, from what Sunny tells me. With their help, I was dug out quicker than you can say 'blizzard'."

I simply stared, unable to process just what must have been going through Sunny's head as she found herself unable to find her sister, the last remnants of her immediate family. What it must have been like for her to dig as fast as she could, knowing that she might not be doing enough. The relief she must have felt when an absolute stranger helped her and laid her fears to rest. Actually, now that I thought about it, a horrifying suspicion had crept into my mind...

"If you ever wanted to know why it is we do what we do, that's pretty much it," Karen said. "There was no possible way we could have repaid that man, whoever he was. Unfortunately he slipped away whilst Sunny and my auntie rushed me to the hospital. They were never able to find him and thank him properly. But a whole crowd of people around and the only person to help us is a vagrant? Sunny decided then and there that she wouldn't ignore folks like that. That she'd be doing everything she could to help them get back on their feet and give them second chances at life, just like they gave me mine."

I shook my head. "That... that's a remarkable story," I said. "I'm glad there are people like you around. Did you ever find your saviour?"

Karen shook her head. "Nah. We tried going back a few months later to try to find him, but we'd heard that he'd moved on. Apparently he's one of those transient types. We were half-hoping he'd run into us one day, all the way down here, but after all this time I'm not sure either of us could recognise him even if we saw him."

"Pity."

"Ain't it just?" A smile finally returned to her face as she regarded me with half-lidded eyes. "Your turn."

"For what?" I asked.

"To tell me a story," she said with that maddening grin. "Fair's fair. I told you one of mine, I ought to get one of yours."

I simply stared at her even as her smile widened at my annoyed expression. Part of me wanted to simply ignore her, but another part of me felt like sharing. Perhaps it was because I wanted some validation of my own. Karen was probably less likely to disregard my warnings, considering she was living out the consequences already. Part of me felt like there wouldn't be a better time, considering Jamie was still asleep, although I couldn't say for how much longer.

I closed my eyes and tried to centre myself. "Fine," I said. "Let me tell you about an overly confident fellow who was too self-absorbed with his own fears and problems to see those of a person very close to him. He called himself Looking Glass... "

**ooo**

Karen fell asleep before I was completely done with the recitation of my life's story, but somehow it didn't bother me. Just the act of telling _someone_ about myself—having told multiple people in fact—made me feel lighter than I had in months, possibly even years.

Even as I came to this realisation, I felt a sort of mental summons backed by a strong compulsion. Almost without thinking or being aware of my own response, I found myself in the inner room whilst Jamie sleepily raised herself into a sitting position. I found myself automatically bracing the wheelchair whilst she climbed into the seat, though she elected to propel herself to the lavatory.

"Karen's asleep," I told her as she did her business. "She's had a long night, I'd suggest letting her sleep herself out."

_I've got no arguments against that,_ she sent back to me, apparently still too tired to speak coherently. _Need to scrounge up some food anyhow._

"And where did you expect to do that?"

_There's a market out there somewhere. We passed it on the way here. I'm sure they'll be open to some zero-finger discounts._

I rolled my eyes. "Kidnapping and shoplifting—my, you're certainly going full-on villain, aren't you?"

_I've even got a kick-arse name lined up,_ she said with good cheer. _What do you say to _Poltergeist_?_

"...is this because your 'power' is a ghost that can throw material objects around willy-nilly?"

_Hey, I never said it was terribly original, I just said it was kick-arse. It's better than _Looking Glass,_ anyhow._

"I think I'll take offense to that," I muttered. I might have said more, but a muffled _crack_ suddenly filled the air and the building shuddered slightly. Without even thinking about it, I rose vertically until I was outside and above the building, partly covered by the tree-canopy.

The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, there wasn't quite enough light in the forest to make spotting anything easy. I spun in a quick circle, trying to find the source of the odd sound when it suddenly repeated itself, much louder and closer than before. Even as I zeroed in on it, I saw a flash of red just as a nearby tree trunk was splintered by a fireball with the loud _crack_ I'd heard earlier. The tree wavered in mid-air for a few brief moments, then came crashing down with another ground-shaking impact.

There was a rush of smaller sounds all blending together and I watched as a large group of men and women clad in various styles of clothing—all of them coloured red and gold—marched into the clearing. Behind them was an armoured figure in the same red and gold. The crowd parted before him as he walked towards the front, a tall woman following at his heels. She was also dressed in the reds the rest of the mob was wearing.

_Er, Jamie?_ I sent, knowing she was already tapping into my senses.

_I see it,_ she replied grimly, although there was an undercurrent of excitement in her mental tone.

"Oy! To the fuckers inside that busted up shack you call a hideout!" Wu Lung shouted loud enough to scatter the local wildlife, if there had been any left after his display of pyrotechnics. "Next time you decide to steal a car, make sure it doesn't have a Tracker!"

**ooo**


	17. Reflection 3-03

**Reflection 3.03**

* * *

_Grab Karen and bring her further inside,_ Jamie ordered me. Her command was accompanied by a compulsion to do just that and I found myself drifting back inside before I had even fully processed her words.

I found Karen where I had left her, still passed out from exhaustion and tied up to the support pillar. I took control over the rubber tubing that restrained her and untied the far end, but when I tried to unwrap it from around her arms, I found myself unable to do so. I didn't have time to sort through the mental block Jamie had clearly imposed over me, so I simply gave the tubing a quick tug that jerked the sleeping girl awake.

"Wha—?" she mumbled, reaching up with her bound hands to rub at her eyes.

I poked my head out far enough so that she could hear me, but otherwise kept a firm grasp on the bindings so she couldn't flee. "Trouble's coming," I told her. "I'm getting you out of the way."

"Mrrgh, trouble for you or for me?" she asked. "Maybe this is the point where I should be resisting?" The yawn that followed her statement belied her words somewhat. I gave an experimental tug on the end of the rope to see if she'd pick up the hint and rise to her feet, but she stayed where she was—either out of a sort of passive resistance, or she really was too tired to move.

I didn't have time to figure this out either. I cast my senses around the room to see if there was anything I could appropriate and found a reasonably sturdy-looking curve of material discarded on the workshop's floor, some sort of plastic or lightweight metal. It was shaped like a grossly oversized chestplate, far too large for anyone's Karen size to wear, but my main concern was that it was large enough for her to sit upright within, and the curved surface would hopefully slide against the floor without too much trouble.

Once I brought it over, Karen rolled atop it with good grace, and she made a half-hearted cheer as I dragged it across the floor and made my way back to the room Jamie had slept in. Jamie was already there waiting impatiently, but when she saw the state her 'best friend' was in, her eyes softened slightly and she jerked her head towards the mattress on the floor, prompting me to tip the plate and dump Karen across it.

She spent a few moments getting herself comfortable, lying on her back with her bound arms resting on her stomach and her eyes focused on the ceiling. "So, you guys are twins."

Even though I was still unable to pick up her thoughts, when Jamie threw me an aside glance I had no problems in reading her expression. _And after all that time whining about keeping it a secret, you start spilling it to _everyone_ you meet now?_

I pointedly avoided her gaze, keeping my focus on Karen who was likewise avoiding both of our eyes. "I like to think so."

"And you two are currently on the outs?"

I could _feel_ Jamie's eyes boring into my side. "A minor difference of opinion," she muttered.

"Which has resulted in an angry mob outside about to do their best to set us on fire," I pointed out.

Karen shifted uncomfortably. "Is this something I need to worry about, or can I pass out now?"

"Get some sleep," Jamie said, running her hand through her hair. She frowned as she snagged it against several tangles, her locks having slipped out of its ponytail at some point during the night. "We'll take care of this."

" 'kay."

**ooo**

Here's something I had to remember for future reference. When Jamie says '_we_ will take care of this', what she really means is _'I'_. She had taken control again; I felt like a passenger in my own body, almost to the point where I was watching events unfold from a third-party's perspective rather than my own.

Wu Lung and his gang—at least that's who I assumed the crowd wearing matching red outfits were—seemed content to wait outside following their leader's challenge. For a little while anyhow. After several minutes had passed and it became obvious that no one inside would be responding, the group began shifting restlessly.

When Wu's patience was stretched enough for him to order a group inside, that became the moment for me—or at least my avatar—to act. I had to give Jamie credit, she had clearly put more thought into the use of our powers than I had. I had taken our original abilities for granted, never trying to apply them to anything other than the most obvious task of scouting.

For example, both Jamie and I had a tether range of around five-kilometres, the furthest either of our spectral forms could range out from the physical body that was our host. This amounted to a spherical zone almost ten-kilometres across—an almost mind-boggling volume when one bothered to consider it.

I used Jamie extensively as in my world as a scout and a second line of communications. She was able to cross from one end of the tether's range to the other within seconds; she could perform a moderately detailed search of an urbanised area in less than an hour.

To put it another way, we were incredibly _fast_ in our spectral forms when we put our minds to it.

The first trio of gang members who walked through the main entrance into the workshop floor found a glowing blue circle lighting up the centre of the room. Various leftover plastics, metals, and other odds and ends seemed to float in the air above this ring, bouncing back and forth across it in a variety of arcing patterns. Stranger than this sight was the fact that there was no noise aside from the ones the gang brought in with them. Shoes scraped against the concrete flooring and startled oaths were vocalised, but the dome of shifting debris was oddly—some might say _eerily_—silent.

One of the members immediately rushed back outside and reported what he'd seen to the crowd waiting at the edge of the clearing. Even as he did so, however, the ring and the debris itself seemed to shift slightly and suddenly the other two intruders were pelted with a hail of lightweight and mostly harmless junk. It was still enough to send them fleeing after their third member, nearly knocking him over in their haste to escape.

Once they were out of sight I felt myself slow to a stop, allowing the remaining pieces to fall to the floor in a loud clatter. I had to stop and shake my head to clear out the lingering dizziness that came from flying around in circles at such speeds, smoothing out the slight mental strain that came from possessing that many various objects. I had stayed in each one just long enough to send them back into the air, then abandoned it to move on to the next one approaching the ground. Overall a fairly impressive-looking performance, if mentally draining. And if was this bad for me, I had to wonder just how Jamie was faring, having more or less taken the brunt of the strain as she took control over my avatar.

_Ow. Maybe not so much, or for quite as long..._ Her mental voice floated into my awareness as her thoughts ran parallel to my own. _Let's try something different this time..._

My vision dimmed slightly as her will seized control over my body once more.

**ooo**

The next group was bigger than the last; half a dozen men and women cautiously making their way through the main entrance. This time there were no lambent lights nor mysteriously moving masses waiting for them as they stepped inside.

One of the women turned towards a man cowering at the back of the group, evidently a member of the first group. "I'm not seeing anything strange going on. Are you sure you guys weren't dipping into something you weren't supposed to before coming here?"

"It was there!" the man protested. "Shit straight out of the Twilight Zone like you wouldn't believe."

"Uh-huh... " The first speaker waved her arm out to encompass the room as a whole. "By all accounts this is one kid that barely comes up to my waist. A _crippled_ kid at that. What's the worst a little thing like her could to do to us?"

There was the sound of shrieking metal as the rusted door behind them slammed shut, dropping the room into darkness and closing them off from the world outside.

The whole group spun around at the sound, making various noises of dismay as they realised what had just happened. Another member moved forward to tug at the door, then stepped in to throw his weight against it to no avail. To his credit, he didn't panic but instead simply turned back to face the rest with a shrug.

One of the gang members raised his hand. "Um... didn't the boss say something about a cape?"

The others turned around and pressed their backs against each other, trying to cover their surroundings with as many eyes as possible. An dull impact somewhere in the darkness echoed through the room. A few of them flinched and brought out improvised weapons, metal pipes, heavy branches, even a pair of highly-illegal switchblades.

Another sound boomed out, this time from the opposite direction and the group flinched again.

"I can see a doorway inside," the one facing in that direction reported. "There's a lot of crap on the floor, though."

"Here's an idea, let's go that way," the female member said.

A loud bang from beyond the door, along with the faint impression of movement within the darkened hallway.

"How about... no?" another person tried.

"What was that?!"

"What was _what?_"

"I thought I saw something moving past us out of the corner of my eye."

The gang members continued to waffle between moving forward or staying where they were. One or two of them had already taken steps towards the inner doorway, whilst the others looked around nervously. After a brief bout of arguing and swearing, they finally regrouped and began moving along the wall towards their target. Their path brought them alongside an ageing equipment locker, the sort without any shelves and a grilled front door.

"Hey," one of them spoke up, "was this thing here earlier?"

They all stopped to stare at the bulky object resting not quite against the wall. "What, this locker?"

The man nodded. "I could have sworn that there weren't any furnishings when I last looked around." He poked curiously at the holes in the grill. "Yech, it _looks_ old enough to belong here, though." He opened the locker's door and leaned forward. "_Smells_ like it too. But empty."

The equipment locker leaned forward and seemed to pull the hapless person inside, slamming the door closed behind him. There was a brief moment of stunned silence.

_"What in the everlasting Hells was that?!"_ One of the women shrieked.

The locker banged from the inside. "Oi! Get me out!"

"Get him out!"

Another one stepped away from the locker. "The door won't open!" He slammed his pipe against the side and the metal crumpled slightly.

"Hey! Watch it!"

Part of the group had immediately turned and bolted for the inner doorway. The first of them froze in place when he got there, the others running into his back as he suddenly halted.

"Hey, what gives?" one asked as she poked her head around his side.

At the far end of the hallway sat a frail-looking girl in a sun dress that reached to her ankles—the formerly white cloth streaked with dirt and other stains. Her black hair seemed to leech the very light from the air and was long enough to reach to her chest, covering her face almost completely. She had what appeared to be a disembodied head cradled between her arms; it cast an eerie glow over her clothes and body.

The girl raised her head as the remainder of the group belatedly piled through the doorway after them, revealing a single eye peeking through her fringe, glowing with that same unearthly blue light.

She giggled.

"Oh, _fuck this_. I ain't dealing with this Samara shit." The person who had spoken flipped his arms into the air, throwing his tree branch behind him. He turned and marched away at what could charitably be called a 'quick pace'.

"I—I think it... that it's Sadako," another person stammered as he edged backwards.

"Don't care! I'm out!"

The group quickly turned tail and fled, discovering that the door which had been previously rusted shut was now easily opened. In the wake of their screaming retreat, the man who had been shut in the locker discovered he could now bust down the door and ran after them.

**ooo**

"That was fun," Jamie remarked as she checked her pockets for her hair tie. "We should do that again, sometime."

"I think you're taking the ghost theme a bit _too_ far," I said. Reservations aside, that _had_ been fairly amusing to watch. Even a bit fun to play the part, if I was being honest with myself.

_"Nonsense,"_ she scoffed. "When one chooses a cape identity and a theme, they should do whatever they can to reinforce that sort of presentation. Flurry has her snow, Wu Lung has his dragons, Volley... well he's a Tinker, his gizmos _are_ his theme. You're the only one really lacking in that department, James." She flicked her hands dismissively as she wheeled herself back into the bedroom. "Be a dear and check outside, would ya?"

I shook my head but obligingly dove into the walls of the workshop and made my way around to a point where I could spy on the gathering outside. All of the members of the second scouting party were being debriefed by Wu Lung and the people around him. From the expression on his face, he wasn't happy.

"—you don't understand," one of them was saying. "I swear, that place is _haunted! _There was some messed up paranormal shenanigans going on in there!"

"I'll give you a few moments to think about what you've just said," Wu Lung, a fully-fledged parahuman, told him, "and to figure out what you're being an idiot about."

"That is beside the point," the woman standing beside him said. She turned to address the scout directly, "Did you see another person inside the building?"

I had to do a double-take, because I had _not_ been expecting Sunny to be accompanying Wu for any reason whatsoever, considering their interactions with each other the last time I had seen him. She looked like she'd seen better days. There was a patch of gauze taped to her face and one arm was wrapped in bandages. She had a red jacket similar to the other members of Wu's gang members, but rather than wear it properly she simply had it draped across her shoulders—to accommodate her injured arm or as a statement of her reluctant alliance, I couldn't be certain.

_Jamie?_ I sent, making sure she noticed what I did.

_Hmm... let's just keep this development between the two of us,_ she sent back.

I missed the exact words the scouts used to answer Wu and Sunny as I turned my focus inward. _What? Are you afraid that Karen won't be as passive towards you if she knew that Sunny had come to retrieve her?_

_I'm _not _worried,_ she replied archly._ I just don't want her to know you're the one responsible for hurting her sister._

_I did not—_ my response was interrupted as she seized control over me once again and I found myself back in the car we had stolen to flee this far. I felt my control spread throughout the entire vehicle and it rumbled to life, startling the few gang members leaning against it.

_What do we know about Wu Lung's abilities?_ Jamie asked, prompting my mind to recall every instance I had seen the use of his powers, from both our original teammate and his alternate-reality counterpart.

Wu was a Striker-class cape, his power only went into effect when he was in direct contact with an object. He was able to manipulate any inorganic material or construct to form what he liked to call his 'dragons', even if the resulting creations looked nothing like the mythical beasts he'd named them after. In our world, those creations could spit out small sparks in a dazzling display to blind or confuse opponents. However, in this world I had seen him throwing out fireballs the size of bowling balls.

_This one's power seems to be more in line with a Blaster-classification,_ Jamie remarked. _So the trick is to bring something to the fight that his abilities will have a reduced effect on._

At the sound of the engine revving, Wu and Sunny turned away from their debriefing as the car abruptly shifted into reverse and powered towards them, accelerating and knocking hapless minions to the side.

Wu immediately stepped forward, placing himself in front of the others. He shouted a question over his shoulder that I could barely hear over the roar of the engine, something along the lines of, 'How attached are you to this piece of junk?' The answer must have been, 'Not much,' since he raised his arms towards the oncoming vehicle. He pressed one hand to the back of a gauntlet and the carved dragon-head spat a ball of fire that immolated itself harmlessly against the metal. Another fireball cracked the glass, followed by a sustained wave of fire. Neither did anything to impede the momentum of the car.

_See? Not a problem._

From my closer vantage point, I had to disagree. Despite the fact that his attacks were having no perceivable effect, despite the minions and Sunny diving out of the car's path, Wu stood his ground. I caught a glimpse of his lower face through his helmet, teeth bared in a reckless grin, as he suddenly leapt into motion. He took one long stride with an arm cocked back, then swung it forward in a wild haymaker to _punch_ the car's rear fender as it closed in on him.

As the car was effectively an extension of myself, I had first-hand experience to the _true_ nature of Wu's power. My possession ability worked as a form of telekinesis combined with my inherent abilities as a spectre. For things like a pillow or the equipment locker, I was able to _lift_ them and move the individual parts around as I wished. I couldn't do the same thing for something as complex and heavy as the car. Instead I was manipulating it as if it were my own body—the engine was my heart whilst the gears and pistons were my muscles. The car was effectively doing what it had been designed to do already, I was just providing a mind behind it.

The moment Wu's bare knuckles came into contact with the metal, I felt a sudden _jolt_ as the car seemed to _rearrange_ itself. The sheer momentum that came from that many tonnes of speeding metal should have sent him flying, but even as I watched, portions of the car seemed to thin out and _vanish,_ instantly dropping the mass of the vehicle to a fraction of what it used to be.

A _huge_ gout of flame had erupted from the point of contact, as if a bomb had been placed in the boot and been triggered by the impact. It washed over Wu and the area behind him—now fully cleared of bystanders—even as the car slammed into a sudden halt.

When the flames died down, Wu's gang was treated to the sight of their leader having apparently stopped a speeding car and weathered a sudden explosion with nothing more than a fist and a shit-eating grin. It was an extraordinary feat of showmanship, one I might have fallen for myself if I hadn't realized just how much of the engine block was suddenly _not there_.

_Huh. I wasn't expecting that..._ Jamie said numbly.

Then the car began _shifting._

If my manipulation of objects was a form of telekinesis, Wu's was a form of rearrangement. I had always recalled there being something a bit _off_ about his dragons in my world. Their motions were somehow too fluid for the materials they had been constructed from. Metal cars should not be writhing sinuously as if they were a form of solid liquid. They just didn't bend that way or that smoothly.

Wu seemed to be continuously rearranging the objects he was in contact with. One moment a door was a solid, flat piece of metallic alloy. The next instant it was a slightly curved sheet, the curve growing more and more pronounced with each split second that followed. Wu wasn't _moving_ the pieces around, he was _rebuilding _it.

With Jamie's will pressing down on me, I tried to fight back as best as I could. As the car stretched itself out, I popped the newly lengthened doors and bonnet in an attempt to strike at him. Even as they flew out at a speed few eyes could even follow, they were already curling in on themselves, blunting their edges and shortening their effective range.

A new thought followed and I retreated into a brief moment of passiveness as Wu completed the car's transformation into a vaguely serpentine length. He shifted his posture into one of smug superiority as the car-dragon coiled in on itself, turning to face the workshop and the supposed occupants inside.

"What's next, brat?!" he shouted. "You might scare some of my crew, but I'll bet you've never dealt with something like me before!"

_And _I'll_ bet you've never faced another cape in years_, Jamie hissed.

Wu had converted and vented a majority of the car's mass into energy to withstand the impact. The whole thing couldn't have weighed more than a few kilograms at this point—well within the range I was able to manipulate objects a bit more... directly.

With a mental yank, the car was torn free from his grasp as I sent it flying out of his reach. His power ceased its effect the moment his fingers slipped away, rendering the entire construct one solid hunk of metal. Even as he teetered off balance, I reversed direction, swinging the heavier end of the car-dragon in a downward arc and caught him in the chest—as if the car were a golf club and Wu Lung was the tee and ball.

He didn't go flying too far, the reduced mass meant that there wasn't a crippling amount of force to the blow and his armour certainly wasn't just for show. He rolled with the impact and was back to his feet within moments, his arms already stretched out to launch fireballs at his wayward creation.

Armed with a better idea of how his powers might work, I noticed the 'decorative' metal dragon carved onto the back of his gauntlet had a tail that ran the length of his forearm and past his elbow. The tail seemed to shrink with each successive fireball that he launched and after several minutes of this sustained barrage he switched hands, opening up with a gauntlet that perfectly mirrored the pristine condition of his original one.

In the meantime, Jamie went to town on his gathered group. We didn't have the fine control over the car-dragon that Wu apparently did, but it worked well enough as an improvised bludgeon. Unfortunately, Wu's gang was not quite as heavily armoured as their leader was and one or two were knocked out of the fight with each swing. She still took potshots at Wu whenever she found an opportunity, but since she was unwilling to allow him the chance to retake control of his construct, such moments were few and far between.

The sustained beating the car was taking was finally taking its toll, whole panels were blackened from repeated fireball impacts and portions of the car had sheared away completely. Still, Wu would run out of minions long before Jamie ran out of things to beat them down with, so I was left wondering when either of the two would call it quits, or at least decide their point had been made.

I'm not quite certain when I first noticed that Sunny wasn't on the battlefield anywhere. At some point between the time Wu had first countered Jamie's opening shot and the chaos that followed, the older woman had managed to disappear. There was really only one place she would have run off to, but even as the thought occurred to me I tried to banish it to the furthest reaches of my mind.

It was of no use, Jamie had already picked up the errant thought. I spun the car-dragon in a circle to clear the immediate area, then used the built up moment to fling it towards Wu Lung. In the same motion I abandoned the construct and sped back towards the workshop, bursting through the wall in a flash.

Sunny was already halfway to the inner doorway, attempting to navigate the debris-laden floor with just the light from the opened outer door. As soon as I emerged into view, she paused to throw a glance towards me from over her shoulder, then broke into a dead sprint, using my own glowing form to light her way.

I had to stop her. Not because I agreed with Jamie's goals, but because Jamie would likely do something _worse_ than she already had if she knew Sunny was approaching her. I dived towards her, ready to stall her or try to convince her to abandon her plan until Jamie was in a more reasonable state of mind.

I opened my mouth to shout—and everything suddenly went black.

...

* * *

"Sunny!"

The hand that had been gripping my shoulder suddenly withdrew as if burned, even as I belatedly flailed my arms to throw off whoever had been shaking me. I blinked sleep-laden eyes in an attempt to focus them and figure out where I was—

I bolted upright, my eyes frantically taking in my surroundings even as my mind tried to deny it. No forest clearing, no abandoned, darkened workshop. Karen and Sunny left alone with my madwoman of a twin.

I turned to my bedside, finding Flurry standing there.

She was pale, an unreadable expression on her face as she stared at me in shock. "What did you just say?" she whispered.

My hand curled into a fist and I pounded it against the headboard, screaming, _"Bugger!"_

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)**__—updates are coming a bit slower, sorry. my 'simple plot idea' has sort of gotten away from itself and become a bit more complicated than i had planned. i'm trying to work through what chekov's guns i may have loaded earlier—figuring out which ones are important and which ones i can dismiss as red herrings. also i find i'm having a hard time trying to figure out what the jamie-in-my-head would do in certain situations. my writing style is to have a scenario and the characters in my head play it out._

_in other news, that fact that i've been getting at least one or two reviews for each of the last few chapters is a cause for celebration for me. yay!_

_some people (both in reviews and out) have been asking if a certain person has made a cameo in the recent chapters. i will say what i told them. "maaaaybe :D"_

_in other-other news, as of this writing Worm's Interlude 26 was released and i just have to say... well, _**fuck**.

_i half want to add some stuff to this story's ending as a result, but i'll prolly have to bite the bullet and let their fates lay where they may. we'll see._


	18. Reflection 3-04

**Reflection 3.04**

* * *

"You've... been speaking with Peter," Flurry stammered slightly, lowering her hand.

"Not since last night, when I was with you both," I replied, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. "Why? What are you doing here, anyhow?"

"You asked for someone to make sure you woke up in the morning," she reminded me. She raised her other hand, brandishing the handwritten sign I had made last night. "And you left this on your door." She half-turned back towards the door, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to hunt down a former associate for betraying a secret he should never have possessed in the first place."

"Huh?" I blinked in confusion as my brain slowly parsed through what she was saying. She was reacting to something I'd said as I was waking up, I had woken up whilst I was in the middle of going after—I swore under my breath as I rolled myself out of bed. "Wait, Flurry! Volley didn't tell me any—" I clammed up as she spun in place with a flinty stare aimed at me.

"My _name_ is Elaine Thompson," she said in an uncommonly heated tone. "I grow tired of having to educate you lot regarding proper communications protocols. You do not address me by codename unless we are in costume and you most _definitely_ do not have the privilege to refer to me as 'Sunny'."

"But, Flur—Elaine, I'm trying to tell you—"

"Do _not _test me on this, James," Elaine said fiercely, her eyes boring into mine.

_"Bloody hell, I'm trying to save your sister!"_ I shouted, matching her glare with my own.

Elaine's mouth bobbed soundlessly for several moments before she clicked her mouth shut. She crossed her arms across her chest, spinning towards the door as if to walk away, then back towards me. She repeated this several times before closing her eyes and sighing deeply. "The subject of my sister is not one I will entertain idle speculation lightly, nor will I permit unwarranted flights of fancy."

She summoned a spinning snowball in one raised palm for several moments for closing it into a fist, dismissing it. "You. Will. Explain," she said, her voice as chilly as I'd ever heard from her.

I held up a hand, "Wait one. I need to make sure of something." I turned towards the corner of the room and reached out through the link. As always, I didn't sense Jamie's presence, but I reached out and sent a command anyhow. The kitten's body twitched in its sleep as Jamie's spectral avatar emerged from its back, rising into view. Her face displayed an empty expression devoid of any intelligence, strongly suggesting that she was still occupied in her world. I shifted her outside to make sure, behind the restaurant to make sure she would not be visible to casual passers-by.

Elaine glanced at her, then moved her focus to the kitten where the ghost had emerged from. She turned back towards me with an impatient expression.

"Are my parents awake?" I asked.

"They let me inside when I told them you had invited me over," she replied. "The two of them have remained downstairs—cooking, I assume."

"Good. I'm not ready for them to hear this just yet." I nodded towards the far wall I had pushed the empty spectre through. "Or Jamie. You guys were right last night, Jamie was listening in on our discussion. I wanted to make sure she hasn't crossed back yet. That's why she seems lifeless right now—she's not _here._ She's still in her original world."

Elaine said nothing about my supposed 'delusion', but her expression betrayed her scepticism.

"In this alternate world the two strangers who helped Jamie off the streets were a pair of sisters." I watched Elaine's face as I spoke. I wasn't sure what I should have been looking for, but she'd already displayed more emotional responses in the last few minutes than I'd seen from her in the last few years, so I hoped I'd be able to read _some_ visual cues. "One is a girl named Karen—brunette, wears her hair long, and needs glasses. She lives alone with her older sister, who she calls 'Sunny' after her 'bright and shining personality'."

Elaine's mouth twitched slightly, but she still looked unconvinced. "Peter is an accomplished hacker and has some other... questionable habits." She shook her head. "I wouldn't put it past him to have discovered certain details on all of us and—"

"Karen is a cape geek," I interrupted her, raising my voice to cover her alternative explanations. "She has posters of various super hero teams and even a few prominent villain groups. She enjoys reading and has a whole wall of her room devoted to a bookshelf. Her pride and joy is her original-edition Harry Potter collection."

Her hands tightened against her biceps, "He could have obtained access to my house and found old photographs, old keepsakes..."

"She said her life turned around when a stranger saved her from a random snow drift in—"

_"Stop."_ Elaine was shaking as she pressed her back against the door. She dropped her head in one hand whilst she held out the other as if to ward off my words. "Please, no more. Don't say anything more."

Jamie might have said my mental faculties were sub par when compared to her own, but I was fully capable of analysing various facts for myself. I'd already suspected the details of Elaine's trigger event when Karen had told me her own... 'origin story', as it were. Before these last few months I'd never known she'd even _had _a sister. It could simply have been natural reticence in keeping her personal life separate from her cape life, but somehow I felt that Karen's near-brush with death in one world and Elaine having snow-based powers in another was too close for coincidence.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't want to bring up any bad memories, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think it was important."

She shook her head; a refusal to accept my apology or a denial of what I was trying to say to her, I wasn't sure. It was obvious that she had been shaken by what she'd heard. "I need a few minutes to think this over," she said. "I'll wait for you downstairs. You should get dressed."

I was suddenly reminded that I was still wearing nothing more than my pyjama bottoms and an old shirt and slapped my forehead even as she quietly stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her.

**ooo**

A quick shower and change of clothes later, I stepped downstairs to into the restaurant area. Like Pete had last night, Elaine had chosen an out-of-the-way table far from the entrance, but there the similarities ended.

We mostly catered to the lunch and dinner crowd, so the restaurant wasn't even open at this relatively early hour. Elaine sat at her table with a calm grace, drinking the green tea my mum had brewed without complaint. In fact, my mum seemed to be waiting on Elaine, fetching her refills and making small talk. I stood in the doorway for several moments simply staring at the two of them interacting before I shrugged and made my way over.

From where she was sitting, Elaine noticed me first and said a few words, prompting my mum to look over her shoulder. She said a few parting words to the other woman before turning and walking past me, patting my shoulder briefly as she went back into the kitchen to continue preparations for later in the day.

Elaine had a slightly perplexed expression on her face as I slid into the chair across from her. "Your mother cares for you a great deal," she said.

I scratched my cheek as I looked towards the kitchen area contemplatively. "She's never been wholly comfortable with me going out to risk my life. She's always wanted me to turn towards a safer career, probably find a girl and settle down or something."

"Yes, about that... " Elaine gave me a somewhat confused look. "She _is_ aware that I am your senior by several years, is she not?"

I blinked in confusion for several moments before my brain parsed through what she'd said. Once I did, I groaned and lowered my head to the table. "She didn't do what I think she did, did she?"

"I could have been misinterpreting the direction the direction of the conversation..." she suggested, only to stop as I shook my head with another groan. "Or perhaps not. Let us speak no more on this subject."

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed. I felt my mood slip as I sobered up and remembered what we were here for. "So, now that you've had some time to think about what I've said... "

Elaine was quiet for several long moments as her own thoughts went back to our previous discussion. "You didn't learn any of this from Peter?" she tried one last time.

I shook my head, "Sorry, no. He hasn't told me anything, I found this out all on my own in the other world." I steeled myself for the inevitable counter-argument. "I'm not lying. And I'm not crazy. This is real, you _have_ to believe me."

Her reply took me by surprise. "I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours," she whispered, staring down into her drink.

"What?"

"Lewis Carroll," she explained. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. "He is the author of one of several rather popular works, you may have heard of them."

"Erm, actually I don't actually read all that much and it's usually—_what?_" I asked at her sudden stare of disbelief.

"...Never mind," she said. She closed her eyes and sighed. "So my sis—this person..." she shook her head. "The one Jamie calls her friend, is she... well?"

I considered my answer carefully. "She's... admitted to being somewhat lonely, doesn't have many friends her own age. But she seems happy in her home with you. The other you, I mean. You both seem to get along quite well."

Elaine's eyes closed briefly as she absorbed that last bit of news. She kept them closed as her breathing evened out and when she opened them it was with the same impassive mask she'd worn for as long as I could remember. "Have events truly gotten so out of hand?"

"We're in trouble," I admitted. "Jamie—she's, ah, she grew sort of... _attached_ to your sis—to her friend. When she thought things weren't going her way, she kidnapped her and ran away from the house they were staying in. She's also picked a fight with another cape—with Wu Lung, actually—and I have no clue how well she can handle herself on her own."

"And how do you expect me to help?" she asked pointedly.

"I just..." I felt my shoulders slump. "I don't know what I should do."

Elaine said nothing, simply regarding me steadily as I leaned my elbows against the table. Her eyes flicked to the side, taking in the restaurant as a whole, and to the doors leading towards the back, where the entrance to the kitchen and the stairs to the living quarters were. Finally her eyes settled back on me.

"I couldn't help but take notice, whilst I was in your room earlier," she began, "but your choice of furnishings are fairly... generic."

I frowned, picturing my room in my head. My bed was fairly old, true, but I distinctly remembered the covers having been replaced recently—within the past year at least. Or was it two? My bookshelf was admittedly rather spartan, but I didn't often read habitually. That was more Jamie's thing. I'd never seen a purpose to updating the decorations continuously as my tastes changed over the years. I shrugged, "What's wrong with that? I don't really care about all the pop culture that seems to change every year."

"By itself, there is nothing remiss. I am not finished yet, however. Do you have any hobbies of your own? What have you been doing in your downtime?"

I gave her an arch look. "What does this all have to do with stopping Jamie from what she's doing?"

"Answer the question."

"Well, I... " I paused and thought about it. "I... " thought about it some more. I frowned and frantically searched my recent memories. "You know, I mostly just went out on patrol and slept. Did a few experiments with my abilities when not patrolling, or even sometimes then."

"Well, I suppose I am the last person to be complaining about someone overworking themselves," Elaine commented. She leaned forward slightly, "One last question: why did you become a hero?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "Jamie thought it'd be cool."

Elaine stared at me silently for a few moments as she digested that. She held the ceramic mug in one hand, slowly pushing it around in a circle as she stared at the table's surface. "So, to summarise: your daily routine revolves around your duties as a cape. Your free time involves interacting and experimenting with the use of your powers—in other words, Jamie. You became a fully-fledged cape in the first place because of the prompting of your powers—again, Jamie—and... that is all."

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "Well, when you put it _that_ way... "

She lifted her head to look me in the eyes. "James, when is the last time you have undertaken an activity solely for _your_ own benefit? When have you lastdone an activity that was not for Jamie's?"

I opened my mouth to answer, only to pause as I searched my memories once again. Dropping out from school had been my own decision, right? I had to focus more on my duties as a cape. Becoming a cape had mostly been Jamie's idea, but even if I'd been somewhat unenthusiastic early on in my career, it had eventually become something I had grown used to. That counted, right?

Elaine had a somewhat knowing look on her face as I glanced towards her, but I was spared any comments from her when both of our phones chimed for our attention. Hers was out before I had even managed to wiggle mine free from my pocket, though she was still reading when I brought up the message that had apparently been sent to the two of us.

_Ongoing skirmish north of Bristol, multiple supervillains engaged with local heroes. The battle is approaching the River Severn and may possibly spill across. Capes from Bristol and Thornbury are on the scene, Newport and Chepstow groups are advised to be on alert._

Elaine lowered her phone and gave me a frank stare even as I finished my own read-through. "You are not coming," she said decisively.

"Wait, what?" I blinked at her in confusion even as she pushed her chair back and rose to her feet.

"My recommendations from last night are still valid," she said. "I still believe you are overly stressed and not thinking rationally. Also, if what you were telling me is true, then J is no longer a reliable asset. It is very likely you will hinder our efforts more than you will contribute."

"That's not fair!" I protested. "I—" my voice broke off in a sudden yawn and I scowled as my own body betrayed my fatigue. Stupid all-nighters. "I can still help!"

Elaine—Flurry—fixed me with an unwavering stare that crumbled my resolve. She didn't bother addressing my complaints, instead stepping around me and heading for the door. "We will speak on this subject again at a later time," she called out from over her shoulder. "Please pass along my thanks to your mother for her hospitality."

I watched her leave even as frustration settled onto my shoulders like a wet blanket, dampening my mood. Without thinking I stretched out across the link for Jamie, but though I managed to connect to her avatar, her consciousness was still not present. With a brief exercise of my powers the spectre's field of vision was brought alongside my own, allowing me to see both the restaurant and the empty lot behind the building at the same time.

With another thought, the spectre was several hundred metres in the air and I had a bird's eye view of the surrounding streets and buildings. I saw police vehicles of various types mobilising and heading for the bridges that connected Southern Wales with the rest of Britain across the Severn. I could see Flurry as she walked at a fast clip back towards her house. I could see it _all._

_Like hell, 'I can't contribute,'_ I thought to myself. I spun on my heel and headed upstairs to grab my gear.

**ooo**

_"Volley, what's the situation?"_

_"Kind of bad. It started with a bank robbery, then turned into a running battle when the crooks tried to make off with the goods and were intercepted by the locals. The fight's still on the far side of the Severn, but the heroes there are outnumbered."_

I listened in to the ongoing voice traffic even as I sped towards the conflict on my moped. I had tuned my hand-held transceiver to the frequency our group had used in the past, though I had detached the microphone from the device and kept it in one of the pouches on my belt.

The spectre kept pace beside me—I didn't have enough fine control over it to send it ahead and drive at the same time. For the moment, our fields of vision overlapped and that was enough for me to keep it active without losing my concentration. Not for the first time this trip, I chided myself for having fallen into the habit of relying on Jamie too much for most of the tasks I had taken for granted.

_"Right now the reports coming in say something like four heroes on-site... versus eight villains."_

_"Eight!"_

_"It's not as bad as it could be, I think. There's also some reports saying they might be double-counting the opposition. They've got a clonemaster or a duplicator."_

_"Is it—?"_

_"Yeah, I think it's the guy Glass brought in. Nightwalker's involved too. I'd say we've found out what he was after at the police station. He was looking up the kid's records and finding out which facility he'd been transferred too."_

A cape that I had captured? My mind flashed back to the duplicator and the problems that had stemmed from engaging him directly. I tried to recall which heroes staked out Bristol, but I was currently drawing a blank—there had never been enough reason for me to look them up before. It was a potential problem; if any of them used anything relatively destructive against the clones, they'd soon find themselves overwhelmed with duplicates.

Flurry clearly had not forgotten that section from my report either. _"They may need backup. Are you coming?"_

_"Sorry, I've got no way to get over there at the moment. I've still got a link-up with the fuzz watching from the sidelines, so I can give you updates. You sure you want to keep Glass out? I can give him a ring."_

_Fat chance,_ I thought to myself. I was approaching a blockade of sorts—a police checkpoint had been set up to limit the traffic going across the bridge and hopefully manage any civilian casualties if the running parahuman fight suddenly decided to turn this way.

_"No. He is unreliable at the moment," _Flurry confirmed my suspicions._ "I cannot go into details right now, but I worry that if what he was claiming was true, then we may find ourselves in a battle with two fronts."_

That stung slightly. Even if Flurry had already said as much to me when she had left, I still didn't like being dismissed like that. I turned away from the road and made my way between a pair of buildings. This should be close enough for me to send the spectre across the river and get a long-range view of the growing melee. Hopefully I could determine where the duplicator's source was and try to knock him out, assuming the capes already present weren't already aware of his nature.

_"... huh."_ Volley made the word a statement, not a question. _"So you believe him, then? Has J really gone crazy?"_

_I don't know, _have I,_ James?_

I barely noticed the moped screeching to a halt as I hit the brakes, nor the faint electric hum falling away as I powered it down. Instead, as the bike settled down into stillness and I dropped the kick-stand, I closed my eyes to find my second set of perceptions watching my own back, though at a much greater distance than I'd arranged to have it following me from.

"How are things on your end?" I asked politely. "I hope you weren't inconvenienced too much."

"Such coldness," Jamie chided me, floating closer. "I'll admit that it's much harder for me to use your powers when you're not there. But I've had... practice doing so." She scowled. "Not enough for me to engage Wu Lung in a straight up fight, unfortunately. I had to cut and run. Did you know Volley kept an old raft-type-thing near the river?"

"So Karen is safe?"

"Probably," she grumbled. "For a certain definition of 'safe', I assume—I had to leave her behind too. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but Wu's a lot crankier than I remember him being. He looked half-ready to set the whole building on fire, except that Sunny was already inside." She moved around so that she was floating a hand's span or two away from my face, staring directly into my eyes. "So what's going on with you? Things look like they're getting _interesting._"

"For a certain definition of 'interesting', I suppose," I parroted back at her. I arched an eyebrow at her. "I was trying to think of a way I could help the others out."

"Oh, that's easy," Jamie said. "We go in there and knock some skulls together."

"In case you've forgotten, we didn't exactly get the skull-knocking powers," I reminded her.

"And you're forgetting that it's not the power itself, but how it's used," she pointed out. "We're _Master_-class capes, lest you forget. We don't need to do it ourselves, we can find something to do it _for_ us."

"What."

"Of course we'll need to get in closer to do that. I hope you don't mind, but I think I need a bit of stress-relief after Wu Lung and his crimson brigade—or whatever they are—ruined my day. And I would have thought you'd want to stick it to Flurry after what she told you. That _is_ why you're out here, aren't you? Defying her 'recommendation'?" she even lifted her hands to flash a pair of air-quotes. I couldn't help but notice that she had been drifting towards me throughout her little explanation.

"Jamie—" I raised my hands in a warding gesture, but it was futile and we both knew it. She dived inside my chest and I felt the pins-and-needles sensation as she assumed direct control over my body. Part of me wondered why I kept giving her the opportunity to do so, whilst another part of me wondered what I could _possibly_ do to stop her.

When the twitching died down, I felt myself baring my teeth in a wide grin as I casually unholstered my police baton and spun it around with a deft flick of my wrist. _"Don't worry, we're gonna have _fun!_"_ my voice proclaimed cheerily. _"And when all this is over, we'll sort them out. Sunny, Flurry, Karen, Wu Lung—all of them. After all,_

_"I've a sceptre in hand,  
I've a crown on my head.  
Let the Looking Glass creatures—whatever they be—  
come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen..."_

My eyes narrowed down to slits even as my smile grew. _"... and _me._"_

**ooo**

* * *

**_(a/n)_**_—i'm somewhat curious to know how you folks feel this story—this _situation_—could be resolved. if you'd like, tell me your theories, your wild-mass-guesses, your 'this had _better_ not happen!'s. it totally has_ _**nothing** to do with the idea that i'm too scared to make an ending that people will flip their computers and go 'bahhh i kept up with this story for all this time just for _this?!_' _

_i will totally not skim through whatever comments/reviews/wmg's simply to pick out the one i like best and go '...yes. yes that is _exactly_ what i was going for. you were right all along.' *write write write*_

_nuh-uh._

_totally._

_seriously._

_...so what do you say? :D_


	19. Reflection 3-05

**Reflection 3.05**

* * *

Things have progressed in the half-hour or so it take me to reach the conflict. Where before there were four heroes in position to battle the super villains and their respective minions, half of them are already out of the fight by the time Flurry arrives on the scene.

I'm still tapping into their communications—not a hard thing to do as they are using the communication protocols that the capes in this region have agreed to use whenever something occurs that requires the various groups to cooperate with each other. Something like this current situation, in fact.

The fight spills over into the farmlands just outside the city limits. The area is all wide fields and homesteads that dot the land, which is a good thing because that means there won't be too much property damage that requires rebuilding. Replanting, perhaps, but that's much easier to do.

I listen in as Flurry links up with the active combatants. I'm not terribly surprised to see Ajax is one of them. One of the oldest capes in this area, he's probably best known for having trained multiple generations of capes—sidekicks of his that have gone on to have successful solo careers of their own. He's hardly the strongest when it comes to takedowns and he's a cranky old man, but he's also a canny veteran and no stranger to getting out of impossible-looking scrapes. The other voice is unfamiliar to me, but she sounds young and I have no problem imagining that she's the old hero's latest protégé.

The story gradually comes together as I listen in. Nightwalker and members of his gang—criminals and mercenaries that use his particular Mover powers to bypass locked doors and guarded walls for the various stores and banks he steals from—had hit the local credit union and taken the employees hostage temporarily whilst they ransacked the place. Ajax and his current sidekick had responded along with the police. However, rather than simply escape with their ill-gotten loot, Nightwalker had apparently decided to force a confrontation.

Two other villains had intervened on his group's behalf and their combined forces had quickly broken free from the police cordon. As they'd escaped the city limits, they had attracted the attention of a pair of solo heroes from the nearby town. Both were fairly low-rated capes and they were apparently unable to overcome their disadvantage in numbers. They'd held out long enough for Ajax to catch up to the melee, but had disappeared with Nightwalker even as the newly arrived hero had been jumped by the clonemaster.

The sounds of their fight continues in the background even as Flurry communicates with him.

_"But Nightwalker has vanished?"_ I hear her ask over the transceiver.

_"He's still around, I think," _the baritone voice of Ajax replies. _"We've seen him hopping around between the shaded trees, but he's been keeping his distance. Maybe he's just here to keep an eye on things. His henchmen are probably long gone with their loot."_

I glance to the left and right as I drive, scanning the fields that pass by for any nearby trees tall enough or wide enough to cast the amount of shade Nightwalker needs in order to teleport to them.

_"'Keep an eye on things' you say? He is evaluating his allies? Do we know who they are?"_

_"One's a young male. Master-class, he can apparently mass-produce clones of himself. Disposable cannon fodder. They aren't too hard to put down, but he just keeps making more of them. I've never seen him before."_

_"I believe I am familiar with that one. From my colleague's report, they are _self-_replicating to a point—each individual copy produces additional clones as they receive heavy amounts of damage. The key is to restrain them without harming them too much, else they will continue to propagate. The alternative is to incapacitate the original; the copies will disappear when his power deactivates."_

Yeah, that's right. I was the one who had found that out. It's nice that Flurry is sourcing her facts correctly, but it flies in the face of her assertion that I don't contribute to these sorts of things.

Ajax grumbles irritably at the news. _"Problem is the newbie's offensive powers are a touch on the wrong side of 'harmful'. She's still learning to control her abilities. How quickly can you get to this position?"_

_"It depends on the opposition, but I believe I can reach you within five minutes."_

_"We'll take what we can get." _Ajax's tone lowers into a growl. _"Be advised however, the other cape is... something else. When we entered the building, we were assaulted by several individuals we had assumed to be civilians. Instead they were extensions of this one's power, also a Master-class. Possibly a Blaster sub-category. Nightwalker and his gang escaped in the confusion whilst we were fighting them off."_

_"What did they look like?"_

_"Children... if you could call them that."_

There is a pause as Flurry seems to digest that. When she finally speaks again, she does not sound pleased. _"That is troubling news indeed."_

I frown, not quite sure what—or who—the two of them are referring to. I know nothing about the sort of power they were describing. I have to assume the final villain is a transient-type. I'm not quite keeping up with the local heroes or villains as much as I should, much less those capes who seem to travel back and forth across the various regions as they please.

It makes me wish Karen was around. Maybe she'd be able to figure out who they're talking about with that small amount of information. I frown as the thought of her brings back the memory of recent events. After everything that has happened, it's hard to imagine that she won't be somewhat cautious of being around me. If only I'd handled the situation better than I had, then perhaps things might have ended with a happier conclusion.

It's not over yet, though. I still have time to fix things. The thought brings a grin to my face as I lean across the handlebars—as if the action can coax a bit more speed from the moped. So focused I am on the destination and my future plans, I barely register the paired row of trees along the stretch of motorway I am currently passing through. Their leaves stretch across the road, forming a natural tunnel of sorts that allow small motes of light to pass through the canopy.

I barely notice this tunnel, but I do notice when a black shape materialises beside me and grabs ahold of me. I _definitely _notice when I am torn away from my bike, helpless to defend myself as I feel the world being dropped out from beneath me.

...

It felt like I was being pulled through an utter blackness, but it was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. It wasn't like The Darkness, not a void of physical _absence _and sensory deprivation. This sort of darkness I could _feel_. I felt myself being compressed and expanded, as if my body was being squeezed through a very narrow hole only to return to normal on the far side. The feeling repeated itself several times before I was suddenly dumped to the floor of a dimly lit room.

I groaned from the various aches I had acquired through my brief trip as I raised myself onto my hands and knees, taking a brief glance at my surroundings.

I appeared to have been dropped into some sort of large supply shed. It was mostly empty except for several rusted sets of farming tools stacked up against the far wall. Light streamed through the windows, reflecting off the dust in the air and illuminating the centre of the room. More light also filtered in through one wall, the rectangular outline suggesting a poorly-fitted doorway. The other three sides were steeped in shadow, the contrast enough that I couldn't make out any further details around the walls.

_Huh,_ I heard Jamie say in my head as she sent me a brief pulse of awareness, _I'm not sure where we are, but I'll give you three guesses as to what just happened._

I turned my head again, refocusing my attention on the corner of the room that Jamie indicated. Two unconscious men lay there, arms and legs bound together with plastic ties. One was dressed in flowing blue robes and appeared to have an empty sword sheath strapped to his waist. The other had plastic shells of black, glossy armour covering his limbs and torso.

Blue Thunder and Bomb Bay, the two capes that had gone missing earlier in the fight. Normally Bomb Bay's outfit would have included a pair of bandoliers criss-crossing his chest, but they had been removed—most likely by the same person who had brought me here.

I had a sudden moment of clarity. _Nightwalker can pull people along with him on his teleports! He doesn't just bypass doors for his groups, he _takes_ his group with him._

_Right in one!_ Jamie answered. _I'm so _proud _of you! Speaking of the Shadow-That-Flaps-Through-the-Night..._

I relaxed one arm, tipping one side towards the ground even as I shoved myself against the ground with my other, starting a roll that carried me out of range of a falling punch that impacted the ground right where I had been laying. Even as I rolled to my feet, I belatedly realised that I had full control over my body.

Better than full control. I ducked my head away from the punch that had shot out from behind me before I had even registered it was even there. I saw a flicker of movement ahead of me and dove forward into a roll that carried me under a sweeping kick as Nightwalker materialised in my path. Even as I rolled past him, he twisted in mid-air, disappearing into the shadows of the dimly lit room.

"Impressive." His voice seemed to echo around the chamber, coming from everywhere at once. "Few people have been able to avoid my attacks to this degree."

"It's not often you engage in combat directly, you Batman reject," I called out into the air even as I whipped my head back and forth in an attempt to catch a glimpse of him. "Why start now?"

_Behind._

I'd ducked before I had even fully registered the warning, bending at my waist and letting Nightwalker's flying kick sail over my head harmlessly. He landed halfway in the shadows and I saw him take a brief step forward and twist himself into nothingness once more.

"You _dare_ to question my courage?!" his voice roared, again from everywhere and nowhere at once. "It is _strategy_ that dictates where and when I choose to contribute to an engagement. It is my _genius_ that allows me to find the best way to apply my abilities, unlike _foolish _little boys—such as yourself—who dive headlong into trouble! But you underestimate me—_all_ of you underestimate me! That is why I will show you that you have reason to _fear_ my brilliance as I—"

I rolled my eyes as the villain went off into his rant. Volley had once described Nightwalker as annoying and hammy. Listening to villain defending the slight against his pride in vainglorious terms and no indoor voice, I felt like I could sympathise with the Tinker much more than I previously had.

I hadn't had the pleasure of experiencing it for myself the first time we had crossed paths and that engagement had been relatively short due to the others' experience in fighting him. Flurry and the others had tangled with him numerous times before I had met them and they had almost gotten down his basic combat strategies down to a science.

It basically came down to two basic factors—deny him the shadows he needed to transport himself, or if that wasn't possible then simply give him a reason to abandon the fight. Nightwalker's goals tended to be fairly straightforward. At heart he was a basic thief, a burglar. He didn't often engage in lengthy fights, preferring the quick knockout instead. Trapped in this room, able to teleport at-will to areas all around the central area, I could easily imagine how he'd managed to knock out the other two capes. If Jamie hadn't been looking out for me and speeding up my reactions, I probably would have been taken out just as fast.

Nightwalker hadn't eased up his attacks the whole time he'd been ranting. In fact, several of his attacks had come in the middle of his sentences. They still sounded like they were coming from the opposite direction he'd actually attacked from—a neat trick that I wished I had the time to puzzle out. However, I hadn't exactly been sitting still whilst I thought either. My only weapon, my nightstick, was now out and from the faint twinges in my hand I knew I had gotten in a few glancing hits.

_Door._ My eyes snapped towards the glowing rectangular outline. As the next attack came I sidestepped it, then charged the doorway shoulder first. The wood creaked slightly with the impact, but it failed to swing open. Whatever was keeping it closed was doing a fair enough job that I achieved nothing further, not even with a kick against the door to propel me back into the lit area.

There went Plan A for removing myself from this battle. Without being able to flood the room with more light than it already had or even escaping into the open sunlight, Nightwalker could press his attacks for as long as his stamina held out. I wasn't eager to give him any further opportunities, so I might have been more open to suggestions than I otherwise would have been.

_Grapple,_ Jamie said. _Hold him down._

I knew what she had in mind, but I was in too much of a hurry to protest. Whether they knew I was present or not, the other heroes needed me there and I couldn't afford to waste time with this guy. Nightwalker materialised out of the gloom directly in front of me, fist outstretched.

Up until now all of his attacks had been launched towards my blindspots, a tactic which might have worked except I'd had Jamie to cover those for me. I wasn't sure if he was also growing tired enough to not be thinking straight, or if he was trying to double-bluff me. Either way, the attack had _my_ full attention and it was a pretty basic punch, albeit one thrown from a fairly odd angle and without any noticeable windup. It was no problem for me to turn towards the attack and throw Nightwalker across my hip.

Even as I flipped him onto his back, Jamie was diving out from my chest and into his. He stiffened as the last wisps of her tail vanished inside of him, though he didn't seem to be falling unconscious either.

"Ha... hahah!" he choked out, eyes wide. "This sensation, I _remember_ this! So, it was _you!"_

I blinked even as I kept one hand against the collar of his costume, the other raised to deliver a knockout blow. I hesitated. "What about it?"

"I thought you were a villain!" he crowed. "A psychic predator, instilling fear and terror in your victims. You're a _hero?_"

I felt an icy sensation settling in my gut. "Okay, that's enough from you," I said as I swung my nightstick towards his head.

Nightwalker's hand twitched and he managed to throw his elaborate cape across his body. It did nothing to hinder my attack, but that wasn't his goal. Even as the cape flew across my eyes, it also raised a curtain between himself and the beams of light streaming in from the windows. I felt him twisting around in my grip and suddenly I was holding nothing, the cloak settling across the ground across my hand as my nightstick flew harmlessly through Jamie's annoyed-looking face.

_Bloody hell,_ she grumbled. _People can get _used _to me? They're not supposed to get used to me._

"I didn't believe my newest minion when he first told me about you," Nightwalker's voice echoed from behind me. I turned to look over my shoulder and found him leaning against the wall sans cloak. His hand was pressed against his chest and he was breathing heavily, but he had a manic grin on his face. "Duplex seems to have run into you as well and the experience seems to have..." he glanced towards Jamie floating over his cape, "..._spooked_ him. I had no problems with promising him a way to ply his _strengths_ against those who would try to bring him down again.

"We paid a visit to that _monster_ you protected. The one that gave him so much trouble before his rebirth. It was quite a satisfying experience, one I believe he's looking forward to repeating." Nightwalker took a shaking step back against the wall, deeper into the shadows. "I shouldn't take that away from him. I look forward to seeing how you'll do. Or better yet, how you'll explain what you've done to your _allies._"

He twisted in upon himself and vanished, leaving me alone in the empty room... along with the two knocked out heroes.

"Why that..." I growled. "Of all the... What are we going to—_aargh!_" I slapped my club against my side with more force than I was comfortable using, but the brief pain helped me refocus my thoughts. I sighed, "Well, that could have gone better."

Jamie said nothing, simply staring down at her folded arms.

I crossed my own arms as I thought back on what Nightwalker had said. 'Duplex' was most likely the name the duplicator had chosen for himself. The idea that he might have become a villain because of me was disturbing, but I couldn't let myself take a villain's words at face-value. Still, it seemed like he was the one giving Ajax and his sidekick a fair amount of trouble, so it seemed like I'd have to confront him at some point anyhow.

I shook my head and stepped over to the two unconscious heroes, dropping into a crouch and checking them for injuries. Without taking off the equipment that kept their identities secret, I couldn't see much, but from the scuffs on their headgear and the visible portions of their faces, I assumed they had just taken a few headshots and dropped.

I felt a chill run through my body and I rose from my crouch, turning and leaving the heroes where they lay. Jamie had taken advantage of my distraction to repossess me and I cursed at myself for not thinking of fleeing when I'd had the chance.

_"Not that it would have done much,"_ she said. _"Unless you knew how to get out of here in the first place."_

_I would have figured something out,_ I protested. _We're not leaving these two here, are we?_

I felt my mouth curl into another grin as my body stepped towards the doorway I had failed to open previously. My hand reached out to push gently against it, but again the door remained stubbornly in place. I felt around the edges for a handle to pull, but when that proved fruitless I simply placed my palm flat against the door and shoved it to the side.

The door slid open along its rails with barely a squeak of rusted tracks.

_"They'd just slow us down anyways,"_ Jamie replied. She fished my cell phone from a pouch pocket and brought up a map of the area, checking our position in relation to the conflict. Once she'd oriented herself, she kicked out my legs and shook them slightly before setting out as if on a light jog. _"Off we go~"_

...

Ajax and his sidekick have taken refuge in a hamlet that seems to have been evacuated or abandoned at a recent point. It doesn't take me very long to reach it—Nightwalker's chosen battleground was the next settlement over, less than a kilometre away.

I spot Duplex's clones first as I approach, a veritable mob of dozens of lightly armoured figures doing their level best to charge the heroes' defensive position. Rows of portable energy barriers wall off most of the approaches between the few buildings and channel the main mass of clones into easily defensible choke points. Ajax has parked himself in the middle of the main channel. His primary shield is deployed, ready to guard against any sudden charges or other attempts by the clones to rush their position.

A vaguely effeminate figure wreathed in smoke stands behind him. The swirling winds around her body carry sparks and embers into the air and she raises one hand to send a blast of wind down the chokepoint, knocking several clones back against the ones crowding them from behind. They are undeterred, continuing to press forward even as she sends a second blast that knocks them flat onto their backs.

The clones approach again and a third blast shoots out, however this one carries a reddish tinge as flames reach out to strike the clones. The front line of clones collapse, their clothing smouldering and showing patches where they have charred. Most of the clones rise to their feet bearing the marks of their injuries, but several seem to flicker as they lie on the ground. When the flickering ones stop, twice their number rise with nary a scratch on their faces.

Ajax barks out a sharp command, unintelligible to my ears, and the girl settles to the ground, the smoke around her dissipating as she shakes her head and pressed a hand to her brow. Without the smoke and embers covering her, she appears to be a young teenaged girl dressed in a form-fitting bodysuit of black, the collar pulled up to cover her lower face. Ajax shouts out another command and she shrouds herself once again, firing off the lower-powered bursts of heat rather than her flame-laden winds.

I slow to a stop several hundred metres away from the conflict, trying to decide the best way to insert myself. Finding the clones' progenitor is the main issue, since without the freedom of movement a spectral form allows me, scouting has become something of a luxury I cannot afford.

It suddenly occurs to me that Flurry would be of more help in subduing the clones without harming them, which makes me wonder why she is not the one beating back their attacks instead of the relatively inexperienced cape struggling to hold back with her powers. On the other hand, Ajax _is_ rather well-known for his enforced training methods—this might have been a good opportunity to tone her powers down to a more hero-appropriate level in a stressful situation, allowing for the occasional lapse in control.

Even as I mull through the possibilities and plans running through my head, I feel a hand suddenly come down to grip my shoulder. I spin around in shock—I hadn't even noticed the intruder's presence and I bring up one arm defensively in preparation to strike against my attacker—

I lower my hand as the identity of the person sneaking up on me becomes clear.

"What are you doing here?" Flurry demands of me, her eyes flicking across my surprised expression towards the skirmish going on not too far from us.

I blink as if confused, then allow my mouth to curl into a wry grin. "Helping, of course. I heard you guys were having some trouble, so I decided to drop by and see if I could lend a hand somehow."

Flurry narrows her eyes at me, but releases my shoulder. "We will have words about your insubordination later," she promises me, "and you will not enjoy it."

"Technically speaking, you're no longer my leader, so I'm not being insubordinate," I point out.

She closes her eyes and turns her head away in frustration, then nods towards the Duplex clones. "I am having difficulty in locating the clones' master," she reports. "What we are seeing is a continuation of the very first wave. I have not seen any newer batches being created."

"Hrmm, perhaps he knows we'd be on to him if he was releasing clones willy-nilly I suppose," I offer.

"Can J locate him? She was able to manage it previously, or is she still indisposed?"

I consider lying to her briefly. I shake my head. "She's not having any luck," I tell her. "He's too well hidden, I think we'd need something to lure him out. We may have to disable the current batch of clones or see if they have a limit to their reproduction and force them to use it all up."

"The idea has merit," Flurry admitted. "Perhaps I should go and aid Ajax and Qarin." She half turns away as if to go out and do just that, but pauses. "By the way, I am glad that you and J seem to have worked through your issues, Looking Glass. From the way you had been explaining it to me, I was afraid those issues would have been as bad as a Jabberwock in the Tulgey Wood."

So Qarin is the sidekick. Useful information, but irrelevant at the moment. I narrow my eyes at the reference to the _Jabberwocky_ poem. If Flurry has realised the inspiration for our codename, then she might have guessed the true nature of our powers.

Still, the way she says it means she's clearly expecting some sort of followup response. "My fault, I guess. Sometimes I'm just too melodramatic for my own good. It was just a misunderstanding—once we figured out what our miscommunication was about it was like taking a vorpal sword and cutting through all the bullshit." I snap my fingers and grin, "Snicker-snack!"

"I see. Well, keep your transceiver open and let me know the minute you find anything." Flurry stares at me for a moment longer before turning and walking away. "You know the frequency, I assume?"

"Yeah, of course," I say. "It's—" I get no further, mostly because I feel a sudden chill behind me. There is no further warning, but I manage to drop into an undignified sprawl as a snowball sails over my head from behind me. "What the—_Flurry?!_" I snarl.

Flurry spins around as the snowball approaches her, allowing it to spin around her in a short arc before it flies back towards me, faster and larger than before. I gather my limbs and spring away to the side, avoiding the renewed attack as the air begins to fill with the innumerable light snowflakes that are her namesake.

"You are not Looking Glass," she states flatly, eyes shrinking into a glare directed towards me. One hand comes up to press against the side of her hood. _"This is Flurry," _I hear her on the open comm-channel. _"Enemy Master protocols in effect. We have a possible bodysnatcher on-site."_

I hear a voice swearing on the private channel used by our team. Volley. I don't have time to dwell on this because I'm suddenly too busy dodging various projectiles and sheets of snow flying my way. Each impact seems to weigh me down ever so slightly. My arm begins to drag as if it's being pulled in a direction I don't wish it to go. The irony is not lost on me and I grin savagely.

With swift movements I retrieve the microphone and cable and plug it into my transceiver. "What are you talking about, Flurry?" I shout bewilderedly. "It's _me!_ I know you're angry at me for disobeying but why are you suddenly being so violent?!"

_"Flurry?"_ the voice is Ajax's, sounding confused.

Another snowball slams into the hand still holding the microphone, knocking it to the side and ripping the plug free from the device. I blink down at the mechanism and scowl.

_"Master _and_ Stranger protocols,"_ she orders. _"I'm going offline, do not respond to anything else I may say in the near future unless I give the all-clear or I respond in person with the proper codes. Flurry out."_ She reaches into her hood and disconnects her own transceiver with unhurried motions, even as I am frantically using my newfound agility to escape her attacks.

Except the heightened-reflexes that come from our merger simply _aren't there_. Before I can puzzle out this strange turn of events, several large snowballs impact against my chest, knocking me to the ground. A secondary barrage of snow holds my wrists and ankles to the ground as Flurry slowly, carefully approaches me.

She stops at my feet and leans across me slightly, holding up an ever-growing ball in her palm. "J," she says.

"Hey, Sunny," I grin back. "What gave it away?"

"There are several things you have said just now which James has already contradicted in prior conversations—discussions I am certain you were not around to witness," she replies. "You will forgive me if I do not state the specific circumstances of those conversations, nor what was said." Her face darkens slightly. "And while I would like to properly chastise you for your cheek, It would not be fair to James."

_Heh. Hear that, James?_ I send. _Flurry's wor-ried about you~_

There is no response. I frown inside, even as I keep a stupidly cheerful grin on his face. I reach out to him in our link. He's never been able to hide himself from _me_ before, why should he have developed the skill now?

Flurry pulls her arm back as if to throw the snowball, now the size of a wrecking ball and still growing. "This is not an idle threat, I _will_ knock you unconscious for all of our sakes so we may sort through this when time allows. I will ask you this once, J; where is James? What have you done with him?"

James isn't here. That's troubling. Where _is _James?

I tilt my head to the side, still smiling. She must have seen something in my eyes, however, because she hefts the snow a little bit higher. "Relax~, he's unharmed. Except for what you just did to him," I answer cheerfully. "But there's two things you've gotten wrong."

Her face betrays nothing, her attack grows larger. "And that is?"

"Hitting me with that will do nothing to _me._ Just this body. And secondly, I'm not J."

Flurry blinks twice, slowly. Maybe that's her way of looking confused?

"I never liked that name in the first place." I grin. "It's _Poltergeist_ now!"

I break free from James' immobilised body and rush her. It's a race to see if I can reach her before she can react somehow, although I'm not sure what she could do even if she did.

It doesn't matter. I win.

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)—**__shoutouts to Panda and Visler from the irc channel for letting me use their OC's as cameos from the weaverdice game. one has already appeared, the other has been mentioned but not quite shown up yet. i'm just getting it out of the way now.  
_

_in case some Worm readers aren't aware, there is a chatroom at (__** irc / darklordpotter / net**)__ (remove slashes and spaces, replace with periods, yada yada...)  
with the chatroom at __**#parahumans**_

_WeaverDice is the name a group of fans have put together, sort of a DnD-lite role-playing game based off the pickup game Weaver started in Drone 23.4, it has its own chatroom with a dice-bot, but i'd suggest idling in the main chatroom and wait for a gm to get a game started._


	20. Reflection 3-06

**Reflection 3.06**

* * *

I've once heard someone say, "You don't know what you've got until it's gone." I'm fairly certain they didn't have this situation in mind when they said it, but it seemed to be apt for this situation.

Jamie wasn't anyone I recognised anymore. The little girl I had grown up with—the sister I had known since I we were both young—had become something terrible and monstrous. Though I hadn't met her in person until recently, I had always been sympathetic towards her plight for almost as long as I could remember—ever since I had figured out what she really was.

I'll admit it had taken me a bit to realise there was anything to even feel sympathy for. When we had first met each other I had felt excited at first. I had made a brand new friend, without trying, even! That in itself wasn't a huge thing—whilst I hadn't been a particularly outgoing child, neither was I without my friends from the various preschools. I had been cheerful, bubbly, and precocious—my mum had often reminded me of how I was back then, often in a wistful tone. In short I was pretty much how my other half had acted prior to this whole clusterfuck.

After my trigger event, it had been a much different world for me. My long stay in the hospital had set me back in my schooling and my friends had moved on in their lives without me. Once the nature of my powers had revealed itself, it was decided that I would not be continuing with public education. Although the existence of parahumans was not unknown, it wasn't something most families in our corner of the world had to deal with. My parents were uncertain as to the reaction our community might have if I were to reveal myself, especially since I had demonstrated very little discipline regarding my abilities. It wasn't until much later that the reason behind my lack of control had revealed itself, but by that point my life had already settled into a new routine.

Father had decided to undertake the task of home-schooling me. Even if he had dropped out from school in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a restaurant owner, the fact remained that he was a brilliant man who had once earned himself a scholarship to higher education in a foreign land. His new duties forced him to split his attention between myself and his restaurant and to share much of the responsibility with my mum, but that had actually worked out for him in the end—she proved herself to be just as shrewd and capable in managing a business as he was. In the long run, it may have actually been _less_ stressful for him to take care of me and manage the restaurant, rather than focus wholly on the business entirely.

During this period, however, I had become more withdrawn. I no longer had any peers in my age group and my parents were still reluctant to allow me out in public whilst unsupervised. I was encouraged to associate and interact with my power in between my lessons—to find a way to control it, or at least manage it.

It hadn't taken me long at all to figure out what Jamie really was. If the odd 'dreams' I'd had in the nights after I was discharged from the hospital didn't clue me in, the fact that our memories were nearly identical up to our accident was enough to convince me. We knew the same people from our preschools, although we associated with different circles; we had the same significant events in our lives and could recall visits from notable family members. I could have dismissed the facts we knew in common as an aspect of my mind sharing my memories—the same way many of the doctors my parents had quietly taken me to had concluded—but she was also able to reveal to me details that I had never known about some of our female classmates, and I was able to do the same for her as well for the boys.

My parents had all but told me that I was to handle anything Jamie-related on my own, but I think that if they had known what I had eventually figured out, then they would not have dropped that responsibility onto my shoulders. The knowledge that my 'sister' was not simply an empowered figment of my imagination; that she no longer had a life of her own to live; that if it hadn't been for _my_ trigger event she might have been a normal girl—it crushed me. I felt like it had been my fault for drawing her into this world, which meant it was up to _me _to fix it... somehow.

I didn't know the first thing about parahumans, much less how one could simply stop having their ability, so I figured my only recourse was to make Jamie's new existence as comfortable as possible. I wanted to make her life better. I devoted my _existence _to her wellbeing.

When she wanted to interact with the outside world again, I snuck out from home to do some exploring and experimenting. My brief forays had probably not been as secretive as I'd thought—the invitation to the secretive boarding school I would attend throughout my teenage years arrived in our mailbox shortly afterwards. Still, the end result was that we were meeting other children our age, children like _us_, so nobody bothered to question this new development. It wasn't long afterwards that Jamie decided she wanted us to lead an active cape life. My parents weren't thrilled with the idea—_I_ wasn't thrilled with the idea—but I went ahead and registered as a rookie hero anyhow.

My goal was to make Jamie's life a little bit better. I wanted to make her happy here. I wanted her to be comfortable in her role as my spectre. Except, apparently she _wasn't_ happy… and she wasn't comfortable with herself. All this time and I hadn't noticed a thing. Apparently she'd been so displeased with her situation that she didn't even recognise herself as Jamie anymore.

Jamie was gone. Only Poltergeist was left.

I had failed.

**ooo**

Sometime after Jamie—after Poltergeist had abandoned the two local heroes to rejoin the ongoing skirmish, I had found myself dropped back within The Darkness. _My _Darkness, I suppose you could say—my own personal hell. Barely twenty-four hours in this void and I was already growing to hate it. How I could have possibly thought that keeping Ja—Poltergeist, damn it—locked away here night after night was a better alternative than letting her see the reality of her existence for herself, I'll never know. Whilst a part of me wanted to do as she did and seek out any method to escape this—no matter the cost—another part of me almost saw the poetic justice Poltergeist had clearly felt in keeping me in here.

I could recognise her foreign presence intruding upon my territory. Similar to before, when she had ripped open a path for me to escape by—a path I had not managed to utilise before it had been closed off from me—her mental energies seemed seemed to overlay themselves against my own. Having had more time to be process the situation, I could definitely say I felt more _aware_ of her influence over myself. Tendrils of thought seemed to snake their way across my mindscape, branching out again and again until a complicated lattice stretched across everything I could see.

It seemed to permeate throughout _everything_. There were barely any areas left that were untouched by her intrusion. I lashed out at the branches with a mental effort, much in the same way I might shoot severe disapproval down the link connecting the two of us. The branches shifted, several smaller tendrils breaking down completely as I overrode them completely. Still, it was a relatively tiny portion that had been destroyed and nearby branches were already warping themselves in response, growing new tendrils to patch over the affected area.

I exerted myself again and again, with similar results. Branches withered and grew back faster than I could destroy them. Here, in my own mindscape, I had no limits to my attacks, but it was no use if I couldn't make any headway against Poltergeist's pervasive influence. At the rate I was going, I could have been at this for eternity and still accomplished nothing.

On the bright side, if she had been telling the truth, I might only be stuck here for a little over a decade.

I could feel despair and panic encroaching upon me. Despair that I had completely dropped the ball on this situation and most likely endangered all of the people around me. Panic because I couldn't imagine what the next few years might be like as a prisoner of my own body. Everything I had done, everything I had _tried _to do—it had all been for naught.

_Consider this,_ a voice seemed to echo from the depths of my mind. _If you lived nearly your whole life being Jamie's thrall, how is that any different from what she is doing now?_

That was a logical question, but the situation really _was_ different. Back then I was trying to _help _her. I might not have done the best of jobs, but the thought had to count for something, right?

_Well, at least your _heart_ seems to be in the right place,_ the voice said. It's tone had shifted slightly, becoming more emotional, more mocking. _Because it's a certainty that your _brain_ was clearly taking a vacation._

I bit back the reflexive response to bite my own head off. It wouldn't do to acknowledge the voices in my head. But still, I was barely nine-years old! Preteens aren't exactly known for their long-term planning!

_You're focusing too much on the decision you made when you were younger. Think about more recent events. Who or what gave you the right to unilaterally decide these things for Jamie?_ Once again the voice had shifted to a third tone, nothing like the first two. Was I really cracking up? This one seemed more indignant or confident—authoritative even.

Who gave me the right? My parents had told me that she was _my _responsi—

_Your parents did not have a full grasp of the situation, _the first voice interrupted me. _You were the only one who had a full understanding of what was going on, yet you never sought assistance when you had discovered you were in over your head._

Okay, now this had become just plain _weird_. I probably _was_ cracking up and I'd only been here for less than a day.

I had the impression of a sigh from the second voice. _Think about it. You're too caught up in self-loathing and a sense of failure to think constructively. Instead, you're hiding away like some emo-kid complaining that the world is out to get them and brooding about Darkness. Although I suppose you have a point about that last part..._

_You seem to have conditioned yourself to put other people's opinions before your own,_ voice three said. _So the only way for you to even consider that your ideas have merit is to trick yourself into believing that they are coming from another source._

O... kay, so now even my subconscious was ganging up on me. But this was rather ham-handed and obvious. There was no way I could fall for something so bluntly executed, I wasn't _that_ naive. I was fully capable of making decisions for myself. If I let other people sway my judgement, that just meant I could recognise when someone else had an idea superior to my own. I wasn't _that _bad, was I?

_Yes, you really are,_ all three voices said at once.

_And you really _are _that naive. You're listening to us now, ain'tcha?_ voice two added.

I winced, but conceded the point.

_Try to think about things in a more logical manner,_ the first voice said. _The facts are that you have spent much time training _yourself_ to be subservient towards Jamie's needs. That by bending to her every whim you have molded yourself into a perfect conduit for her._

_Think about what she, herself, has told you,_ the third voice chimed in. _She may have been misleading you, but she is the final authority on her own abilities. She has stated outright that living beings with simpler brains are her primary possession targets. Birds, cats, things like that._

I did recall her pointing that out. I also remembered the few times she had interacted with other people. Nightwalker and Duplex had both been rendered catatonic the first time she had engaged them. However, she had not been able to fully take control of either of them.

_The _only_ person she has been able to control is _you.

What if I wasn't an end result? What if I was the outlier, that one sample that deviated from the established pattern? If Poltergeist was only able to hit me and not other people—

_Then she's not as strong as she may think she is. She's let her 'success' cloud her own judgements. And you're reinforcing that impression. So if she's not controlling you because she is that strong... maybe it's just because you're an idiot._

Could it be true? Was I, on some unconscious level, so used to giving way to Poltergeist that I was _allowing_ her to take control over me? What about the rest of her abilities?

_You respected her privacy, so she was able to hide from you. You were unwilling to let her be alone, so she was able to form a strong connection with you. You had _no_ ambitions of your own, so she was able to make decisions for you. This current situation could be an extension of that._

_In other words, you were _so_ boring she just had to step in and take over your life, because you wouldn't have done anything with it anyhow._

_You've never decided _anything_ for yourself. You've always wanted to do what you were told._

It was cold, hard logic that made me see the connections. It was the mocking words that inflamed my emotions and made me see their value. It was the authoritative conclusions that forced me to reconsider where many of my beliefs had even come from.

It seemed too easy, too simple. What if this was Poltergeist playing tricks on me again?

_Called it. I knew you'd backtrack to that point. You're too much of a wuss to even _believe_ you could think on your own. It has to be Jamie always calling the shots for you. Never you. Grow. Up._

_Look around you. You can differentiate her influence from the background of your own mind. You see that it branches out. I ask you this now, Where is it branching out _from_?_

_That_ gave me pause. I couldn't believe I hadn't even considered that. I began tracing the energies, following one branch until it terminated into a set of smaller tendrils. Wrong direction. I traced it back the other way until it ran into another, similarly-sized branch. The two combined into a larger branch. I continued following that path and found another junction, and then another.

I traced Poltergeist's intrusion to it's source. It was another 'light', a tear in the fabric of my mindscape where she had broken in. As I approached it I could hear voices. I caught glimpses of light, of movement.

As I reach the tear my vision seems to snap back into focus. Snowflakes blur the air in all directions and I see Flurry standing there before me with a threatening posture. I hear it as she confronts me with words and by force. One of the branches sends out a pulse, it runs through various other branches and tendrils down where I had 'been' previously, then returns. I get the sudden sensation of _displeasure_ as I fail to find what I am looking for.

I backed up slightly as another, stronger pulse burst out. This time a branch seemed to grow directly in front of me, rapidly dividing and subdividing—saturating the nearby area. I didn't _want_ it to approach me and a brief exertion of will results in the branches completely missing the area I am occupying. They retract once more as Poltergeist's probe finishes its search and I feel another confused pulse from her as her search again fails to turn up any traces of my presence.

The pulses originated from beyond the tear—from outside my mind. There is no way for me to be certain of what lies beyond it, yet somehow I feel oddly secure in approaching it. This is not the same tear that Poltergeist had opened for me earlier. It has a different quality to it, something that almost seems like it's beyond her abilities... and mine, for that matter. I don't know if I could close this, or even open it any wider. It's just _there_.

I hadn't quite been paying attention to what was happening outside my body, but when Poltergeist abruptly begins her withdrawal a small part of me was not surprised. As if I had known what she was about to do before she actually did it. The tendrils merge themselves back into branches, the branches merge back into a single trunk. The whole thing begins to pull itself free from my mind, using the gap.

_See your reality for yourself. Don't allow it to just pull you along without being aware of what it _is._ Understand it. Only then can you make an informed choice._

With a mental exertion I grab a hold of the trailing ends as it flickers through the tear, only to lose my grip as it whips to the side. Poltergeist vanishes into the ether, whilst my momentum carries me through the empty void...

_To infinity... and—!_

_You. Be silent._

...and beyond.

...

* * *

Darkness, but it is not my own.

Darkness, but it is not hers.

If I had to explain it, I would say it melded both of ours in some unquantifiable manner. A bridge, if you will. Within this darkness was a brilliant light that did nothing to dispel the shadows around it. It was just there, without any presence. It was like the light bouncing off of a diamond or a piece of glass, but without any edge for it to reflect from. This shard was exactly in the centre of this bridge that connected us, its light shone brightly towards either end, but it didn't quite reach either of us. There was a gap between the junctions. Between this bridge and my mind. Between this bridge and her mind.

For lack of a better way to describe it, I stood at the edge of the bridge and poked my head out. At full extension I saw Darkness, but this one more familiar, even though it was still not my own. It felt familiar, but was still totally different from mine. Between there and here, an empty void. Not Darkness, but not quite light either.

It was familiar to me, I stepped into it.

The first thing I noticed was the presence of light. The sun was peeking through the clouds in a few areas and even though I had no sense of temperature in this form, I inexplicably felt warmer.

The second thing I noticed was Poltergeist beneath me. Stretched out across the bottom of a canoe. Her legs were sprawled uselessly beneath one of the benches that stretched along the sides, one arm had been thrown across her face to protect her eyes as she slept. Her wheelchair was not in evidence, apparently she had been forced to abandon it.

The third thing I notice was the sheer amount of red that surrounded us. The canoe had beached itself against the riverbank and Wu Lung and his cronies had us surrounded. They were keeping their distance—most of them sitting on the ground as if settling in to wait. Wu himself was standing over the canoe with an odd expression on his face as he stared down at the tiny slip of a girl that had given him so much trouble.

It was too late for me to avoid attention, they had apparently been here for some time and Wu's eyes snapped towards me the moment I had shifted my eyes.

"So, you're the brains of this operation?" he asked me.

I saw his group stirring in response to his sudden question, many of them retrieving weapons from the ground around them.

I held up my hands placatingly, although if I this Wu was anything like the one I had known, it probably would not help. "I don't want a fight," I said.

He snorted in response. "Bit late for that, don'tcha think?" He dropped into a crouch and placed one hand deliberately against the boat, staring at me the whole time. "Any suspicious moves and your puppet gets it. I don't know what you need in order to manifest yourself, but the other girl you took was taken back by her sister. I'm on to you now and I _refuse _to let the likes of you operating within my territory."

I blinked. "Wait, what?" I struggled to parse through what he was trying to imply, but then I remembered a similar misconception Karen had asked during the previous night. Had it really been that short of a time? "My puppet? The likes of me—what are you talking about?"

Wu frowned and clamped his fingers against the frame. The canoe creaked and began to shift, a loud crack sounding from the stern as the hull cracked open and water began streaming in. He flexed his hand again and the breach sealed itself. "Try again," he said heatedly.

"I'm not a bad guy!" I protested. "I'm... well I guess I might be an _accessory_, or maybe I count as a weapon, but I'm sort of being compelled to do this stuff. I'm..." I felt my voice faltering as my gaze fell upon Poltergeist, just barely out of reach from the water Wu had let in. "I need help," I admitted.

"Sure you do. I'm not feeling particularly generous at the moment."

"With this girl," I indicated Poltergeist with a wave of my hand. "She's like family to me. But, she's had a long string of _very bad days_ and she's sort of lashing out. I don't mean you any harm, and I think deep down neither does she. But for all of our sakes, could you... um, restrain her?"

"Very bad days," Wu repeated blankly, an odd expression on his face. "Like today's been a good day for me, do you see _me_ going apeshit and cracking heads open?" His hand tightened against the frame again and I heard the boat creaking.

I nervously flicked my eyes towards the stern where water was beginning to seep in once again. Reaching out slightly, I took control over the boat and floated it forward so that the breach was out of the water. I hastily dropped it again when his attention refocused on me, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Erm, maybe not _heads_..." I suggested weakly. "But, be reasonable... she's just a little girl..."

In retrospect, that may not have been the best thing to say or do to Wu in his current state, seeing as his pride had already been injured in our previous confrontation. Having his powers countered to a certain degree and watching his crew getting tossed around was bad enough, but to chase us down only to find that the person who had schooled him so badly was a crippled, young woman who looked to be barely out of her teens?

Fortunately cooler heads prevailed.

"Wu Lung, I wish to speak with it. Please do not damage the girl." Sunny strode past the sentry line at the edge of the clearing and made her way to the riverbank. Her eyes flicked towards the slowly sinking boat, then fixed themselves pointedly on Wu's hand.

He grimaced and exerted himself one last time, but rather than making use of his powers, he simply dragged the boat further up the bank and onto land. Poltergeist grumbled in her sleep at the jarring motion, but otherwise remained asleep.

Sunny turned back to face me. From the expression on her face, I reconsidered the thought of her mood being _anything_ but 'cool'. She looked mildly irritated, which suggested to me that she was beyond _furious_. "This is a private conversation," she said flatly. "Please leave us."

"Hell no," Wu protested. "This little bitch made a move against me. Anything you have to say, I deserve to know."

I looked at Sunny with imploring eyes, hoping she could convince the villain to step away. I wasn't quite sure why Wu had been humoring her requests up until now, but I was hoping that the trend would continue for at least a little bit longer. Alas, like everything else today, things didn't quite go my way.

"Fine," Sunny capitulated abruptly, still focusing her glare towards me. "Karin's informed me about much of what you've told her. I'm asking for clarification. You are James?"

"I—er, yes?" I stumbled. I wasn't sure what threw me off more, the fact that Sunny was speaking so bluntly, or the sudden interrogation itself.

"You're Jamie's counterpart. You are her and she is you. You are both parahumans with complimentary abilities."

"Yeah... " I worried about the obvious followup to that question. I had told Karen about us being parallel universe counterparts, but I had sort of been feeling like I'd owed her something—both for the situation she'd found herself in as well as the story she had told me in return. In a way, I guess I had trusted her. Still, that didn't change the fact that having that part of our powers explained to that degree made me nervous.

Sunny's eyes flicked towards Wu Lung for a brief moment before they snapped back to me. I wasn't sure if he'd noticed the movement, but then she took a deep breath and moved to a different line of questioning. "Did you hurt Karin?"

I lowered my head. "I don't remember it, but yeah... I'm pretty sure I did."

Her eyes hardened fractionally. "Did you _intend_ to bring her harm?"

"No!" I shouted. "I liked her, she was friendly... if a bit too curious for her own good. But I really thought she would be good for Jamie. I didn't think... " I looked away. "I didn't even _know _that... Poltergeist... was that close to cracking." I lifted my head again to meet her eyes. "It was my fault. I don't know what you can do to me, but whatever you decide, it _should_ be to me. Poltergeist—Jamie—she's not well... I want you to help her."

"Help her," Sunny echoed. "The way I was trying to help her before this all started?"

"Well... " I looked away guiltily. "At least now you know what you're up against."

There was an awkward silence for several moments. Sunny stared at me; I stared down at Poltergeist; Wu's eyes glanced back and forth between all three of us, but he kept silent.

"Poltergeist," Sunny mused, leaning back slightly. "Would that not that fit _you_ better? You are, after all, the ghost that seems to be able to make objects mysteriously fly."

I shrugged. "She chose the name."

"I see." Sunny half-turned to face Wu Lung directly. "Have your people take her somewhere safe. If they can keep her safely contained without harming her, I would appreciate it."

"You've been saying that a lot lately," Wu grumbled, although he lifted one arm to give a brief hand signal and several members of his gang broke ranks to march towards us. "I'm still waiting to see what your appreciation looks like, because right now I'm not feeling it."

"Help me resolve this peacefully and you may yet find out."

"I'm going... I'm going... Geez, what _was_ I thinking? Stupid, pushy witch."

"_What _did you say?"

"...Stupid, pushy witch?"

"Ah. That's what I thought. It never hurts to be certain." Sunny turned back towards me and I involuntarily floated a few paces back. Her expression hadn't shifted in the slightest, yet I had the impression that being reminded of my presence did not exactly fill her with joy. The two of us stared at each other as Wu and his minions carefully retrieved Poltergeist's sleeping body and marched her off to where they had their vehicles parked. Part of me wanted to stop them, yet another part figured this would be the best thing I could possibly do for her.

Logically, I knew that Poltergeist needed to be kept somewhere where she could do no more harm to anyone. Emotionally, I felt like I should have been finding some way to help her, or at least mitigate my failure to do so.

I didn't even realise my gaze had shifted away from our little face-off until Sunny cleared her throat expectantly. When I turned back to face her she was frowning, although much of the malice had disappeared from her expression.

"I hope you'll forgive me if I say you are a stupidly honest person," she said.

"Er, thanks?"

"You clearly mean well, but your decision-making process is not exactly the best there is," she clarified.

"Yes, thank you for pointing that out," I grumbled. "You can join the little voices in my head."

"You helped my sister," Sunny said. "You have my sincere gratitude for that. Karen speaks very well of you." Her face twisted as if she'd just bitten into something sour. "On the other hand, she still speaks well of Jamie, so I find myself beginning to question her judgement."

She tilted her head to look at me. "I understand you have coexisted peacefully with Jamie—with this... Poltergeist—for some time. You know her best. What would you have us do with her?"

_Help her,_ was the absolute first thing that came to mind first, quickly followed by, _Lock her up._ The problem was I didn't know how to help her, nor did I think locking her away from everything she'd known would do anything in the long run. Almost as I felt myself giving up again, I heard a tiny voice in the back of my head. _Why not just have both?_

I blinked, turning the thought over in my head as I considered the merits of the suggestion—the idea? Did this even count as something I had come up with? I shook my head, definitely not the time to worry about that.

"I think... " I began cautiously, "I might know what we could do..."

I told Sunny my suggestion. She didn't seem surprised, but then again it _was_ a rather obvious course of action in hindsight. It was just a completely different direction from what I had been thinking before, something I never would have considered otherwise.

...

* * *

Once the arrangements had been made, I bid Sunny farewell and sought out Poltergeist via our link. Instead of following it to her body, I simply detached myself from the spectral avatar and returned to the void between our bodies. Back to the bridge spanning our worlds.

I was more attuned with Poltergeist's mental signature now, so I could easily see that she was still present in my world. She wasn't currently inhabiting my body, her presence was some distance away. I still couldn't tell what she was up to, but knowing that my body was cleared of her presence was good enough for me.

Her mental block keeping me from waking up on my own was still there, but being able to _see_ it with more clarity gave me a bit more leeway in dealing with it. After a few minutes of simply picking at it, the energy simply unraveled itself and vanished into the ether.

I blinked open my eyes to find myself flat on my back. My jumpsuit was slightly damp against my arm and leg cuffs, as well as a large wet splotch against my chest. As I rose into a sitting position, I noticed the still form of Flurry lying on the ground barely a metre away from me. I quickly rolled to my feet, reaching out with my hands to check her pulse.

I had barely brought my fingers into contact with the hood covering her face when a forceful blow knocked me away from her. I batted at the snow pressing against my side as she staggered to her feet, the eyeholes of her mask narrowing as she regarded me.

"Looking Glass?" she wheezed, pressing a hand against her own chest tenderly.

"Um, hi?" I gave her an abbreviated wave and tried to give her a relieved smile. It was slightly unsteady from a lack of confidence, not helped as she raised her arm towards me and formations of snow began collecting in front of her.

"What beverage did your mother serve to me when I visited your establishment this morning?"

"Um, green tea?" I answered. "Although if that was supposed to be a security question of sorts, you should know that she _always_ serves green tea, so that probably wasn't a very good one..."

Despite my very reasonable objections, Flurry lowered her hand and dismissed her attack. "It will still work. You are far too honest for your own good," she stated. "J seems to have taken great delight in attempting misdirection."

I didn't bother correcting her use of Poltergeist's former code name. I still wasn't quite sure what had happened between the two of them, but I could make an educated guess. I glanced around the open field. "Where is she now?"

"I do not know," Flurry replied. "I should probably reestablish contact with Ajax if he is still active." She turned towards the buildings in the far-off distance, watching it closely for several moments. "From the lack of activity coming from the homestead, it is possible that their situation may have been resolved.

"Oh, it's resolved." A male voice, young, called out from the settlement's direction. The tall grass parted and a teenaged boy stepped into view. And another one. And another. Their leader grinned and posted his hands on his hips. "A few minutes of panic and they had an entire army bearing down on them. I'm not sure they were equipped to deal with that."

And another... and another... and another...

"Duplex," Flurry identified the newcomer.

Duplex held up a finger as if in correction. "Half-right," he said. "Duplex is taking a bit of a break at the moment. He's fine, though. It wouldn't do to harm him, not when he's powering this many of his clones."

And another... all in all there were _several_ dozen Duplex clones, spreading out to surround us on all sides. That in itself was unnerving, because during my first encounter I had never seen them do any sort of task without a single-minded focus. Each of these clones seemed _aware_ in a manner they never had been before. Rather than the blank look they had sported previously, they now all wore the same maddening grin on their faces. A grin that was startlingly familiar... I choked back a surprised outcry.

Flurry had reached the same conclusion I had, dropping into a half-crouch and summoning more snow around her. "Poltergeist?"

"Full marks!" he—or she—crowed. "To be honest I was hoping I could have you, Flurry. But somehow I just wasn't able to get the hooks in deep enough. Duplex is like Nightwalker, he seems to be adapting to me somehow—we'll need to experiment with that later when we have the chance, James."

"But the clones!" she hammered a fist against her chest. "They're something else. Durable, yet flimsy. Hordes of them, but they're all simply copies of a single one. Capable of independent actions..."

From all around us, each clone opened it's mouth in a haunting chorus. _"... and they're all really, _really_ simple-minded."_

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)—**__apologies for the late updates. classes have started and not only am i attending a new school in a different city, but i commute there. and it is faaaar. most days in the week i have simply been finishing whatever homework i have left and crashing into bed. i was able to sneak in a few paragraphs here and there in between classes, but it's still far less time than i'm used to having._

_some of the writing may have suffered because of this. i'm sort of scared the scenes seem to be jumping around without the meanings fully getting across. lot's of BLAMs or something. but yknow what, i'm too tired and i want to actually enjoy my weekend. sorta. so here's what you get!_

_enjoy!_

_...or else?_


	21. Interlude 3 (Flurry)

**Interlude 3**

* * *

They came, pressing forward at a relaxed pace. They came, the same face shared by numerous bodies as they leered at their targets. They came, marching relentlessly towards the two individuals at the centre of the area defined by their bodies.

The two capes—one male and one female—stood back to back against each other. Normally fighting in that manner would not help them in this sort of situation. Freedom of movement—more than any static defensive posture—was what was required against such numbers. However, only one of the two was capable of attacking from range whilst the other was... marginally proficient at hand-to-hand combat at best. Had the ranged attacker's usual partner been present they could have stalled the encroaching enemies long enough for her to deploy her most efficient abilities for crowd control. Had the melee fighter's own powers not been turned against him—literally—then they might not have been in this situation to begin with.

The woman closed her eyes and stretched out with her powers. As she did so, she selected an even distribution in her mind and felt the minute difference in pressure in the air as her territory formed around her. The boundary of the zone did nothing to inhibit those outside from entering, nor did it prevent anyone inside from retreating. Yet for all intents and purposes, this area was under her command—even if there was not much she could actually order around within it.

In a broad circle roughly fifty metres across, the air chilled and snowflakes began to form. Their numbers were small at first—a handful of tiny particles each as unique and individual in ways their opposition was not. In the area immediately around her the numbers swelled until they surrounded her body with the lightweight, fast-moving flurries that were her namesake. Further out, the volume of snow along the outer edges of the circle remained constant, doing nothing more than interfere with the vision of those closing in as well as those behind them. The clones' visibility would have been reduced to bare metres in front of them and even then all that they could make out within that range were the featureless silhouettes of their surroundings.

The localised snow storm inhibited the defenders' vision just as badly, but Flurry had other ways to navigate her territory—even if Looking Glass was not so fortunate. The snow did more than reduce visibility for every living thing inside—so long as they remained within her territory she was able to feel the slight feedback that resulted from them coming into contact with those individuals that had wandered inside.

She frowned as she used the information that came from that ability to gain a general impression of her surroundings. She and Looking Glass faced twenty individuals just within the range of her territory, with more entering behind them. The clones that Poltergeist had hijacked did not seem to be worried about the poor visibility conditions, if the steady pace they maintained was any indication. Perhaps she felt, as their original master did, that quantity would be enough to trump any hastily set up defenses. More importantly, Flurry could also determine that the majority of them were approaching from a single vector. From every other direction the rate of intrusion was much lower than that one point—the leftover clones having apparently taken the time to circle around first before moving in.

The thicker portions were a likely indicator as to the direction of the clones' progenitor. The female cape sifted through her memories, recalling the abilities she knew about this particular opponent—directly or through hearsay. She made a few educated guesses based on a few other factors such as the terrain, the status and capabilities of her active allies, and finally her own physical condition. She pressed a hand against her chest gingerly. There was no pain that she could feel at this time, but when Poltereist had attempted to possess her, the spectre's ethereal invasion had felt like a cross between a vicious hammer blow and a piercing stab.

An idea clicked into place within her mind. She analysed it, tested it for any major flaws, and balanced that against the clones' current ability to anticipate her actions. She determined that it was a workable tactic for at least the next few seconds judging by their current inattention. Swiftly, she reshaped her boundary field into a relatively narrow cone—reducing the area it covered along her sides and behind her, but greatly extending its range and spread before her.

Several kilograms of snow was generated in an instant, moving at a fast clip even as they formed. In the blink of an eye, a shotgun spread of small but dense particles plowed through a formation of clones just to the left of the main cluster. The snowballs fragmented on impact, reducing the damage being inflicted, but it was enough to send half a dozen duplicates flying backwards and clearing a path through their cordon.

As the previously blinding snowstorm dissipated without her territory to support it—before the first body had even hit the ground—Flurry had Looking Glass' wrist locked in her hand as she hauled him past the attackers' skirmish line at a dead run.

...

* * *

Snow means sickness.

Elaine first learned this lesson as child when the Thompson family lost their mother to an acute case of pneumonia. Unfortunately the snowstorm she'd been caught out in had been particularly severe, leaving power lines dead for their entire town—including the local hospital. Ellen Thompson fought tooth and nail for her life, but in the end her body failed her and she was buried that same winter. It was a a beautiful service, if one ignored the delays that resulted from the metre-thick layers of ice and snow the groundskeepers were forced to dig through in order to reach the soil.

Marc Thompson tried his best to be a caring father, but he had no clue how to raise two daughters on his own—and to be completely honest, he missed his wife far more than he loved his daughters. Elaine ended up raising her younger sister on her own, with financial support provided by her father even as he drowned his grief at the local pub.

Snow means tragedy.

The winter of Elaine's fifteenth year, her father was lost to her in a car accident. After much pressure from his eldest daughter he had been clean and sober for nearly a half a year—ironically it was the other driver's fault for indulging himself and not properly respecting the icy conditions of the roadways. The Thompson sisters were forced to enjoy another beautiful service— pristine and white—as they laid their father to rest beside his beloved wife.

Since Elaine had not yet reached the age of majority, the sisters' maternal aunt had stepped in to take over the their care. Aunt Margaret was a strict disciplinarian—not really a problem for the eldest sister since was rather mature for her age. Karen, on the other hand, was strong-willed and had grown up with only an absentee father and an older sister for role models. As a result she had grown up to be rather free-spirited and tomboyish—a development their aunt simply could not abide.

Karen had resented the sudden enforcement of femininity in her life, whilst Elaine resented her aunt's harsh treatment of her younger sister. She was fiercely protective of what she considered to be the last remnants of her family and dismissed her relative as an outsider, someone who had no right to interfere with her family's affairs. The two older women butted heads at nearly every opportunity and the atmosphere within the household grew more and more strained with each passing month.

...

* * *

Flurry released Glass' hand as the two broke through Poltergeist's battle lines. Trusting him to be able to hold his own for a few moments now that they were in the open air, she reestablished her boundary in a roughly semi-circular shape. Once again she sacrificed coverage to her rear in favor of increased range, once again setting up her detection grid, though not as blinding as before. Instead, she scattered her element across the field between herself and the clones as they turned as one to reengage her. The snow was thick enough to slow down their charge slightly and she took the opportunity to launch her attacks, aiming for their arms and legs in an attempt to press them down and restrain them against the ground.

It should be obvious at this point, but it bears mentioning that the previously knocked down assailants had already been disposed of in a similar manner.

"Jamie!" she heard Looking Glass call out as a trio of duplicates closed in on him. He charged forward and stepped back just as quickly, drawing an ineffectual lunge from the clone directly in front of him. As it overextended itself, Glass lashed out with his baton to club it across the back of its head, dropping it to the ground. "Why are you doing this?!"

_Communications protocols..._ Flurry sighed in annoyance. She'd have to remind him—_again_—at some point in the near future... hopefully after this situation had been successfully resolved. She paused for a moment, missing the Poltergeist's reply through the clones as she turned the thought on its head. Trusting her senses to help keep track of her opponents, she turned her attention to reconnecting her communicator to the microphone embedded within her mask. "Flurry to Ajax," she stated once she was sure she had an open channel.

Static hissed in her earbuds.

She clicked her way through several other frequencies, repeating herself with each successive channels and being answered with the same crackling noise. Finally she switched over to an older preset and was rewarded with simple dead air.

Flurry glanced around to do one last visual sweep for anything in her immediate vicinity, then pursed her lips and whistled out a short tune—six brief notes immediately recogniseable as a popular children's nursery rhyme.

The line crackled to life. _"Volley here. Do I get a cookie for waiting until I got verification?"_

"Perhaps a biscuit," Flurry replied. "What is your status?"

_"I still need to do a few more calculations—the wind shear over the Severn is something fierce. But if you need something urgently, I can manage that... though you might not like the results."_

Flurry threw herself to the side and tucked into a roll, narrowly avoiding a sudden charge from behind her. She redefined the boundaries of her territory, expanding the coverage behind her whilst reducing her range. "We will manage for now," she said as she buried the offending clone. "But notify me the instant you are ready."

_"Gotcha. Hey, is this sort of thing going to become more commonplace again? I'm sort of balancing job offers and—"_

Flurry cut the transmission and tracked a pair of duplicates rushing her in tandem. She eyeballed their current pace, then took the time to create a formation of snow a metre from their path. As it grew to the desired size, she hurled it crosswise, striking one of the clones and knocking it into the second one, tripping them both up. She scattered the projectile on impact and flattened them both to the ground.

Beneath her mask, her mouth had tightened into a thin, flat line.

She heard a muffled curse as Looking Glass was caught off guard and tripped up by a clone that had suddenly dived for his legs. Having been guarding his upper body up until this point, the manoeuvre had caught him flat-footed and he was shortly dog-piled by his remaining attackers. It was quickly becoming apparent that although Duplex's clones were not exactly brawlers, neither were they the simple pushovers he—or Flurry, for that matter—had been expecting.

Although they still maintained their single-minded drive to complete whatever orders they had been tasked with as they were spawned, the clones under Poltergeist's influence were also reprioritising on the fly. Here and there, Flurry found clones that had previously been rushing the two of them suddenly veer away to help dig out one that she had previously trapped. As Glass had just discovered, they would abruptly change targets to get around whatever blocks or defenses had been set up to counter their basic offenses. Whilst their numbers were not any larger than they had been, the fact that previously incapacitated duplicates were rejoining the fight did not bode well for her current strategy.

Even as the thought occurred to her, she felt the heavy tread as a clone stepped up beside her and attempted to bury its fist into her side. She nimbly avoided the attack, but discovered too late that the heavier tread had been a second clone matching the first's footsteps. She caught the barest glimpse of an armoured boot just before it clipped her across the head and everything went dark.

...

* * *

Snow means death.

Elaine pressed her hands against the wall separating her from her sister and tried not to let her emotions overcome her. Aunt Margaret was pacing the floor behind her, babbling to some friend or otherwise engaged in some other meaningless drivel on her cell phone. She paid her no mind, instead carefully watching the light over the door even as she tried her best to put her own mind at ease.

_Karen is alive. I managed to dig her free in time__. I wasn't __too late. She's just resting. My little sister is alive..._

A stay at the hospital was routine for anyone who had been buried under snow for as long as she had been. She'd rest here for a while—perhaps stay for a few days of observations if the physicians were being absurdly caution—then they would all return home. The two of them would look back on this time at a later point in their life to joke about it.

_Karen is alive... She's stronger than Mummy—she's had me looking out for her unlike Daddy who was all alone... She is alive she's alive she's _alive_..._

The light above the door went out but she continued to face the wall even as the head physician exited the room with a professionally neutral expression. She heard him speaking with her aunt, but she tried her best to put the noises out of her mind.

_She's alive... she's fine... she's..._

"...asphixiated, her brain wasn't receiving enough oxygen and there were complica—"

"Don't give me any of that medical mumbo-jumbo, young man. I'm a simple woman and I'd prefer to hear plain talk when spoken to."

The doctor lowered his voice slightly. The wall was polished smooth, almost reflective. She couldn't make out the details of her own face, but she could see his reflection as he glanced her way briefly, then said something too quietly for her to hear.

_She's fine, she's just resting. Karen is just resting... they just need us to leave now so she can get back to sleep and rest..._

Elaine pressed her forehead against the wall, as if those extra few centimetres would be enough to send her warmth and pleas through to her sister. She'd wake up and see Elaine, laughing at the face she was probably making with her skin flattened around her forehead and nose and her eyes scrunched up, all red and tearing up something awful. She'd turn a smart-alecky grin on her and ask her in that teasing voice of hers, _'Aww, did you miss me?'_

"Elaine's a strong girl, you don't have to worry about her. When my sister passed on she took it like a _proper _woman. She faced it with dignity. She can hear anything you'd have to tell me."

A soft murmur. She heard the words but they didn't parse in her mind. They weren't true. They were _lies_. They weren't worth hearing. Elaine felt her throat thickening, holding back the scream she so desperately needed to let loose. But she couldn't. She had to be strong for her sister. If she let herself give in then Karen would _really_ be... but she wasn't...

She felt stars exploding behind her eyes as she squeezed them shut as tightly as she could. It was too much, _too much._ Her mum, her dad, her _sister_. She tried to internalise her pain but her efforts weren't enough. It refused to be held in without a fight. It tore at her insides—she felt as if she were exploding, flying, falling, everything all at once. She—

—_was looking down at the world and it was so small, so _insignificant _in the face of her loss. She was missing a crucial portion of herself—an _irreplaceable _companion—and she was so confused and adrift and... What had it all been for? How could she move forward if she didn't know what to _do _and—_

She felt herself sliding to the floor, keening piteously as the doctor and her auntie rushed towards her—shouting at her, asking if she was okay. As if she _should_ have been okay with both parents already... and Karen—her _sister..._

"...and will someone explain to me why it is so _cold _in here all of a sudden?"

...

* * *

Winter is the end of a cycle—the period of time where living things wipe the slate clean in preparation for beginning anew.

"You have the look of someone who's not sure about what they want to do or where they want to go in life."

She stared at the man before her, dressed in a brilliant white costume with red highlights and a diamond motif in various patterns across his chest, sleeves, and mask. He stood with a graceful poise, a posture that screamed confidence and authority.

She, in contrast, had worn an off-white parka over normal street clothes. The parka was zipped all the way to the hood, leaving a tiny opening just large enough for her face to peer out. Overheating was not an issue; she simply generated enough of a chill around herself to keep her body at a comfortable temperature. She stood at rigid attention before him, not hiding anything, but not giving anything away either.

There was nothing to lose by answering him, but at the same time he hadn't exactly offered a question. She settled for simply saying nothing.

He shifted slightly, as if uncertain about her complete lack of response. "What's your name, kid?" he tried.

"Flurry." She'd taken quite some time to decide upon this name. Something that would be immediately clear, but not overused. She'd even thought of a way to adjust her powers so that they reflected aspects of her moniker, sort of like a calling card. She hoped _she_ would have approved.

"Flurry," the cape repeated, raising one hand and tipping a non-existent hat towards her. "You must be wondering who I am."

It was becoming rather annoying how he phrased his queries in a non-questioning format. Flurry decided to indulge him for once. "You are a member of the Suits," she stated flatly. "Diamond division from your accessories; most likely a member of the Response Team judging by how quickly you arrived upon the scene. A Mover-class parahuman."

She had left her aunt as soon as she had reached adulthood, returning to her childhood home. The property had been hers since her parents had died and she had used her minor influence to ensure that nothing had been removed. It was a reminder of simpler times, happier times. She had clung to those memories as if they were a life preserver, keeping her from sinking into depression.

It also helped that Ka—that her sister had been collecting a ridiculous amount of information on capes. Knowledge that proved to be useful given the more radical change in her life.

The Suit seemed taken aback by her sudden outburst. "Er, yes... well..."

"Would you like to take this individual into custody?" Flurry interrupted him, motioning towards the snow-covered man on the ground. "I witnessed him attempting to rob a pedestrian along the roadway several blocks from here." She pulled a small notebook out of her pocket. "The victim has since returned to her shopping but I have her contact information and description if you would like verification, as well as several eyewitness statements from those nearby—"

"Hold on, hold on!" the Suit raised his hands as she offered him the pad filled with neat scribings. "That's more of a matter for the local constabulary. I'm here to offer you a position. You did some good work here, but we can help you make more of a difference."

The parka hood shifted slightly. "If I am not mistaken, the Suits are based fairly close to London."

The Suit nodded, "We hold the South, whilst the King's Men take up residence more in the North. There's still some overlap, however. But you need not worry about any conflict on that front. We're all on the same side, after all."

London was over one-hundred kilometres away. Far too great a distance for her tastes. "I am afraid I must decline," she said. "I do not wish to relocate."

He paused in the middle of an elaborate gesticulation, then lowered his hands and adopted a somewhat disappointed stance. "Are you certain? It wouldn't be for long. Once we get you established there's no problem with having you assigned to this area."

Flurry shrugged. "This is my home," she simply said. "I do not wish to leave it for any significant period of time.

He stared at her for several moments, peering into her unflinching eyes before sighing and dipping a hand into a chest pocket. "Well, I suppose there's nothing for it. We're always open to new members," he said as he flicked a slim card in her direction.

She let it bounce off of a white barrier in front of her face before letting it flutter onto her upraised palm. She arched an eyebrow as she flipped the playing card around in her hand. "Subtle," she commented.

He grinned. "In case you change your mind. I'm sure a smart girl like you can figure out how to reach us with just that." He sketched out a brief bow, keeping his eyes on her. "If I may make a suggestion?"

Flurry pocketed the card and returned to her initial standing position.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're fairly new to this way of life." He paused, but pressed on when no such corrections were forthcoming. "My old mentor is a cape local to this area, he prides himself on getting rookies through their first few months... "

...

* * *

"A team," she said flatly.

"Yeah!" Wu Lung replied excitedly. "With your brains and my brawns, we'd be _unstoppable_."

"That phrase assumes there is a significant disparity between our skills in such a way that a collaboration will not only cover our relative weaknesses, but synergise with each other. To borrow a phrase of yours, I believe I have 'handed your ass to you on a platter,' in our previous engagements."

"Have you ever heard of rock-paper-scissors?"

"It has no bearing on this situation. I am your parole officer, not your ally."

"Okay, look," Wu ran a hand across the back of his brand-new helmet. "Let's say you're right. I play nice for a year or two, I get off the hook and we go our separate ways. What then?"

"I would resume my duties on my own or with Ajax—assuming he will still have me," Flurry replied.

"Yeah, about that... I'm pretty sure he's moved on. Did you hear about that new kid that popped up last week? The Brute-class?"

"...ah..."

"Exactly. Think of it this way, he feels confident in your future. He's done all he can to get you ready for the bigger world! How, you ask? Well is it any coincidence that he moved on after the last few jobs we've pulled?" Wu elbowed her good-naturedly—or he would have, except she had placed a barrier between his elbow and her side. He absent-mindedly brushed the snow off of his sleeve. "Admit it, we work well together."

Flurry thought about it. Her life as Elaine was admittedly stale. She stayed at home, using her earnings as a cape to cover her living expenses, but more and more often she was finding herself looking forward to the times she and Wu went out on patrol. It almost made her forget the mausoleum she had turned her house into. Perhaps a change of pace would be for the better... at least for the short-term.

Still... "There is hardly enough work here to support a permanent group," she pointed out. "Although there is a significant amount of work to be done here, it is not anything the local heroes cannot already handle."

"So we move," Wu said. "That's generally what the rookies do after they're done here, isn't it? Why not Wales? Not too far and I already know you've been commuting to work, as it were."

Flurry glared at him. "You know where I live?"

"I've—er—been sort of watching you, but purely out of teamly concern for my fellow... teamster."

"I see... " Flurry sighed, giving up the fight. "I'm not ready for this," she tried one last time.

"Not with _that _attitude, you aren't."

"I cannot take charge. I'm not experienced enough."

"Fine, you aren't in charge, but you're still making the decisions," Wu crossed his arms across his chest. "You're smarter than I am."

...

* * *

Flurry groaned underneath her breath as her vision swam back into focus. She was lying face down in the grass—her mask had kept her from suffocating on the soil, but she could see where her hood had dug into the ground slightly and knew dirt would be falling along the inner-lining of her suit it was most likely _in her hair_.

She allowed herself a brief moment to wish she had suffocated instead, then resumed scanning her surroundings as best as she could without giving away her return to consciousness.

Looking Glass was within her field of vision, surrounded by Duplex's clones. Most of them were simply keeping watch in all directions, but there was one that had dropped into a crouch before him. From the clone's body language and the fact that it appeared to be holding a conversation with the other cape, she assumed it to be Poltergeist's current avatar.

She closed her eyes and did her best to pick up what they might be saying. The distance and light winds made it somewhat difficult, but Poltergeist was being rather loud herself so she could make out portions of it.

"... needed a physical body, why not?"

She couldn't hear Glass' side of the conversation. Nothing she could do about it, she put it out of mind and moved on.

"Yeah... ...anted... be... hero. But y... were so _boring!_"

Again she couldn't make out the reply, but Glass had never bothered with a mask so it wasn't too difficult to read his expressions. He was shocked, dismayed by whatever Poltergeist was telling him. His stricken expression sent pangs of sympathetic pain through Flurry and it took her several moments to realise why.

Looking Glass was afraid. That much was obvious to see. However, he appeared to be less afraid of the state he found himself in and more so about the reality being displayed in front of him. Poltergeist was almost as lost to him as Karen was to her. The thought brought a brief twinge of pain in Flurry's chest.

No, it was more than that. _She_ was dismayed and saddened to find Jamie having fallen to such depths. Having gone from the cheerful, bright girl she had been when they'd first met...

...

* * *

"Hey there!"

Flurry jerked as a face suddenly filled her vision, nearly dislodging her from the rooftop perch she had settled on to as she recoiled in surprise. "What in the—"

"_Ne_, you're a cape, right?" the newcomer interrupted. She appeared to be a young girl, although her size was unusually small, with her head appearing grossly out of proportion from the rest of her... body?

Flurry blinked. The girl was floating. More than that, she was very nearly transparent. She tilted her head as she gave a closer inspection on the girl before her. "I am," she belatedly answered her question. "As are you, I would assume?"

"Me? _Naww,_ that'd be more of my brother's schtick. We were looking for a superhero to team up with—er, you _are_ a superhero, right? It'd be really embarrassing if I tracked you down all this way and it turned out you were a villain..."

"No, you were correct," Flurry assured her, still slightly off-balance. She caught a flash of light out of the corner of her eye. A series of blinking lights from a rooftop several hundred metres away. Volley, most likely. It was probable that he'd seen the pair's interaction and wanted to make sure she was alright. "Excuse me for just a moment."

She fished out a small hand-held beacon from a pouch pocket and aimed it towards the faraway building, flashing out an 'all-clear' pattern. She thought for a moment, then followed up with a 'regroup' command. She shook her head slightly as she stowed the beacon, what she wouldn't give for something more _reliable_ to use. She was startled out of her musings by high-pitched noise and snapped her head around.

The girl had clasped her hands together and was making an excited squeal. "You're in a _team!_" she cried. "That was like, secret codes and everything! Oh this is gonna be _wicked cool!_" She did a flip in midair then beckoned Flurry towards her. "C'mon, meet me down on the street behind this building. There's someone I want you to meet!" She backflipped in the air again and dove out of sight.

Flurry felt the corner of her mouth twitching slightly as she made her way over to the fire escape to meet this mysterious parahuman. _That was a rather interesting girl_, she mused. _And a cape as well—or at least parahuman-related._

Karen would have liked meeting her.

...

* * *

... to this deranged, _disturbed_ individual.

Flurry wondered for a few moments why the change had bothered her so much, but the answer was not long in coming to her.

_"You want him for his ghost-thingy, don't you?"_ The voice echoed from her memories and she tried in vain to block them out, unwilling to indulge in the thoughts and feelings they brought up with them. _"She reminds you of—"_

—_Karen._

Flurry didn't know why she had linked the two so closely together in her mind, but she could not deny the fact that she had done so. Most of the resemblance was superficial at best—Looking Glass was roughly the age her sister would have been which meant Jamie was as well; both were rather outspoken when they wished to be; both of them were intrinsically linked to capes.

There were differences, of course. Whilst her sister was outspoken as a matter of defiance towards her peers, Jamie seemed to have no boundaries at all. She got away with the most outrageous behaviours imaginable, with no sense of tact or propriety. With the luxury of hindsight, Flurry knew much of it had to do with the fact that they had all classified her in their minds as 'not human', and so they had not held her to the same standards they would other people. Karen was merely an avid fan of parahumans whereas Jamie was the byproduct of an ability user—although from what Glass had been saying and her recent actions, Jamie was a particularly capable parahuman herself.

She wished Evan were still around. Despite his brash personality, he'd always struck Flurry as being particularly aware of what other people were thinking or feeling. He was generally rather harsh and free with his criticisms, but he'd always made her rethink her values and snap judgements.

He'd never really liked Glass or Jamie. He already knew that she tended to focus on the two of them far more than an impartial team leader should have—and he also knew the underlying reasoning behind it. Yet at the same time, Flurry had sometimes wondered there wasn't something more to it. His own... infatuation with her had been rather transparent and she had thought it was almost charming the way he continuously sought to put the younger capes in their place.

Looking back, however, she wondered if he had seen what everyone else had missed about Jamie. If not necessarily this exact situation, he may have picked up on her lack of restraint and Glass' unwillingness to call her to task. Perhaps he'd been trying to be the bad cop intentionally—to be the person to rein her in, or at least get Looking Glass into a position where he would have been forced to do it.

Perhaps. Maybe. That possible future was closed off forever. She'd never know his reasons for acting the way he did. She'd never know what might have been had she decided to accept his advances. She'd never know, because...

...

* * *

_He's dead. And it's all my fault._

Flurry stared unblinkingly towards the ceiling. She was not alone in the room—there had been far too many casualties, every scrap of floor space had been required. Pained cries from the various capes, as well as the shouts and commands of the staff, filled the air in a cacophony of sound. A privacy curtain hung from a hastily set up frame, though it had been pulled aside temporarily to allow her visitor.

"I didn't see it for myself, and J—she won't tell me the details," Looking Glass said. He was currently wheelchair-bound, although his injuries mostly consisted of several bruised ribs and a hairline fracture in one arm. He would recover with few side-effects.

Flurry's body was blissfully numb, but no amount of painkillers could remove the twinges that ran up her shoulder from the remains of her left arm. Capes that could impart low-level regeneration were said to have been running around the hospital, but triage protocols meant survivable injuries like her own were close to the bottom of the priority list. She wasn't dying, she was merely severely uncomfortable.

No amount of painkillers could remove the crushing feeling within her chest at the news Glass had brought. Volley's and Glass' injuries were her responsibility. Wu's death was her own fault.

_Snow means death._

_She _had been the one to lead them to that forsaken ice cap. She, a cape with snow-based powers... She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.

"What was I _thinking?_" she murmured to herself.

"What was that?"

She shook her head, hanging her head. "Nothing. I'd like to be alone right now. Perhaps later—when Volley is awake and up to moving around—could you both return here? There's... something I need to discuss with you both."

...

* * *

She turned her face away from Poltergeist's interrogation of Glass. She had nearly forgotten herself—forgotten the reason _why _she had separated herself from the group. Why she had refused any further offers to take up a new partner or sidekick.

Working with someone required getting to know them. The closer one got to another, the more they learned each other's habits and patterns, the more efficiently they would work together. But on the other hand, the closer and stronger the bond became, the greater the backlash when it was severed.

She had already felt the effects and had decided she wanted no more part in it. What was happening to Looking Glass was tragic, but at least this way, he too would have a chance to learn the lesson she had. Perhaps he would grow as a person, learn to stop relying on others to carry him.

She rolled over onto her back, groaning slightly as she pulled at bruised and sore muscles. Perhaps he'd learn it was easier to simply roll over and give up to spare any further pain.

_"Heh... once bitten, twice shy, is that it?"_

Her eyes snapped open. That sounded like something _she _might say.

_"Where's the scary lady who stood up to Auntie Marge whenever she thought she was being unreasonable? Who didn't give a crap because it was her _sister_ she was yelling at?"_

_Aunt Margaret,_ she corrected reflexively, even as she felt her eyes misting over slightly. She had felt _good _as a protector. It didn't matter that most of the time it really had been Karen's own fault for bringing down her aunt's wrath. It didn't matter that most of the time she lost whatever arguments she had gotten into. Karen didn't care about the results. What'd mattered to her at the time was that she'd _tried._ Karen just wanted to know that she had her older sister's support.

But whilst it had _felt _right_, _she hadn't been able to save Karen when mattered the most. She had thought it would have been different, taking her _weakness _and turning it into a _strength_. But even after she'd received her powers, nothing had _changed_.

_"You'll always be a team leader to me, Flurry."_

Looking Glass had told her that, just a few weeks ago. _Had it really been that long?_ He still looked up to her. He still went to her for advice. He was still willing to support her, even when she had warned him away. He had come to help her even when she didn't need it, and now he found himself in this position.

Because she hadn't protected him?

_"Oh for fuck's sake, he's a big boy who can take care of himself. Except when he can't... like now."_

Oh _hells._ She felt her eyes welling up with tears and could do nothing to stop them.

Heedless of the situation, she reached up to remove her mask, running her sleeve across her face. She noted a clone turning her way as it caught the movement, stepping away from the perimeter to investigate.

She hadn't asked to be in charge of the eclectic group she had found herself at the head of. She hadn't wanted to be responsible for them...

_"You're _not _responsible for the crap he gets himself into."_

...but she was. Even in death—even just a memory—_he_ still seemed to have the ability to cut her reasoning and justification to shreds. All that was left was a simple truth.

She was a parahuman. She was a cape. She was a hero. She didn't have to be responsible for the messes that other people—normal or otherwise—found themselves in. She wasn't even responsible for resolving it for them.

She was a hero, all that she had to worry about was putting in the effort. It was only if she _didn't_ try that she would have reason to feel sorry for herself. Only by not putting forth the responsibility would she have failed.

_"Bu~ut then again, since when has anyone ever been satisfied with 'they put in a good effort?'"_

Flurry held her face mask over her head, turning it over in the light. It was pure white. Featureless, with no markings. A thin, white layer of fabric covered the eye holes, allowing her to see out, but keeping anyone at a distance from seeing her eyes. She remembered when she had decided on this design—or lack of one—when she had been crafting her costume.

_Snow means purity._

She tossed it to the side and rose into a sitting position. She threw back her hood and climbed to her feet, facing the approaching clone head-on with a narrow-eyed glare.

She raised her arms out in front of her and began to reestablish her field. Snow flurries began spiralling through the air, reaching Poltergeist and beyond. The boundary enclosed every single one of the clones—she had expanded its range to make sure. Then she went to work.

_"Knock 'em dead, Sunny."_

She smiled grimly. Of course she would. Snow means death.

...

* * *

Poltergeist raised a spectral hand to the two clones holding James against the ground and poked them each in the forehead, her finger stabbing deeply into their skulls in turn. "Hold him," she ordered them. "Make sure he doesn't get back up, not like he could do anything either way."

She raised her current clone's body to it's full height and turned towards Flurry. "Now, let's see what Boss-Lady has got up her slee—oh, wow. She looks pissed."

She had felt the chill of Flurry's powers taking effect and she was wary of any sudden snowballs that might fly her way. The clouded air was making it slightly harder to see, but Poltergeist wasn't worried about that. She had Flurry's measure in regards to her power set. She'd watched her in combat for many years, up to and including the Behemoth fight. Granted, the last one hadn't been much of a fight at all, but if there had been any unusual tricks the snow woman had up her sleeve, she would have used them long before now.

Even the ginormous snowball she formed to simply crush the first clone was within her expectations. A bit odd and bloodthirsty, perhaps, but even that could work out for her. As before, the ball broke into pieces and piled against the ground, but after a few moments the pile shifted and two more clones rose to meet her.

Then she flattened them again, sandwiching them against the previous attack before they had even freed themselves part way.

Poltergeist lifted an eyebrow. Flurry was intentionally using lethal force on her minions? That was interesting. Might as well play along and spare her some time. Commanding her current body to stand still for a few moments, she ejected herself and whipped through a quartet of duplicates standing at the edge of the sentry line before she returned. The four immediately turned and charged Flurry, who was still standing in her original position.

With access to her current avatar's senses, Poltergeist felt the wind picking up, the temperature dropping just a little bit more. Before they had even gone ten paces, all four clones had been flattened. Then buried once again.

Grumbling beneath her breath, Poltergeist left to commanded a dozen more clones to close in on the hero, but this time they were to avoid her attacks as best as possible. They got a little bit farther, but now snow was removing itself from the previous attacks to join the freshly generated snowballs. With attacks coming from two separate directions, they were stalled as well.

Poltergeist glared at the white-cloaked cape and set her avatar into motion, rushing for Flurry directly... but not before she had commanded the remainder of her army to attack. Dozens of clones charged forward, some directly, some looping around, others biding their time slightly and using the rest for cover.

Flurry pressed her counterattack and clones dropped, only to emerge fresh and doubled in number. They were felled in turn, duplicating again, and again. Ajax and his sidekick had fallen to this very same reckless charge, discovering too late that the clones were not just limited to the straightforward attacks they had been using previously.

The snow storm suddenly increased in strength and Poltergeist and the clones lost sight of their target. She had anticipated something like this, however, and rather than stop and await further orders or visuals of their target, the clones continued charging where they had seen her last.

A small pile of them had already formed as they collapsed upon her location and Poltergeist could hear the meaty smacks and thuds as they pummeled their poor victim.

Then a large icicle flew down from above, impaling a good portion of the mob.

Poltergeist snapped her head to the side and saw the blizzard parting before her, revealing Flurry having moved several metres to the side. The normally stoic cape still wore a slightly mocking smile as she stretched out one arm...

...and pointed it towards the sky.

The remaining duplicates charged Flurry's new position even as Poltergeist glanced upwards. Her shock transmitted itself to her hijacked body, its face turning pale as she saw the numerous shards of ice forming overhead. Even as she watched, a formation of snow collected in midair, shaking slightly as unseen pressures forced it together, compacting it and solidifying it. After several long seconds a brand-new icicle had joined the growing number of sharp, pointy death aimed towards the ground.

Flurry had apparently been busy whilst she'd baited out the earlier attacks. Her hand twitched and the sky began to fall.

Poltergeist shrieked as her avatar sustained several piercing impacts. She quickly removed herself from its body, but the echoes of pain followed her for several moments and she whimpered as they slowly faded away.

All around her, clones wordlessly died as they were pierced by innumerable projectiles. They collapsed to the ground bleeding, only to flicker and reemerge, then were almost immediately felled again. The clones that had dogpiled Flurry's former position were particularly useless, so many clones caught in their regeneration cycle that they were locked into place, unable to move at all.

The gruesome scene repeated itself again and again over several long minutes. Spent icicles would return to the air, seeking out new targets. New icicles were constantly forming, providing a fresh supply of ammunition, almost in mockery of the duplicate's normal processes. Throughout it all, Poltergeist found herself sidelined, watching the massacre with impotent fury. Every time she tried to attack her directly, the snow woman veiled herself and fled to a new position.

Yet despite Flurry being constantly on the defensive, her attacks still continued to rain down as if she knew where every thing was around her. Or, more likely, the attack was automatic once triggered, freeing up her concentration on her personal defense.

Poltergeist decided she could work with that. Flurry's ability _had _to run out at some point. In the meantime, the violence of her attack was increasing the size of her army to ever-growing heights. If they kept divind at this rate, then eventually she would have enough minions to—

She watched as an icicle pierced a clone. Rather than fall over like the countless hundreds before it, the duplicate simple disintegrated where it stood as the projectile's momentum carried it into another clone's chest. That one _did _fall over and multiply.

Here and there, random clones were vanishing into dust as whatever limit they possessed had been reached. It was only a few of them, but the storm of icicles continued even then. Soon a quarter of the duplicates had vanished—then half. Soon their numbers were close to the original amount that had been fielded, but even these were rapidly being disposed of.

Whilst she had been busy gaping at the display of her army being literally cut to pieces, Poltergeist barely noticed as the two duplicates she had left guarding James were finally targeted. They both slumped to the ground and began to flicker, but the damage had been done. Looking Glass was now free, and the confusion brought on by the sudden turn of events had thrown whatever remaining composure Poltergeist still possessed into disarray.

"Poltergeist," she heard the voice calling from one side.

She spun in place just as Flurry stepped out from behind another one of her snowy veils. "You..." she growled. "You've ruined _everything!_"

"That was my intention," the snow cape replied. "I was not certain if Duplex's clones would have a limit to their reproduction, but it seemed to be a logical conclusion. I am fortunate that I was correct."

"You... you _guessed?!_" Poltergeist threw her hands up as if to tear out her hair. "You gambled that whole offensive on a _guess?!_"

"Indeed. By the way," Flurry raised her arm to point over Poltergeist's shoulder. "I believe someone wishes to have a word with you."

Poltergeist suddenly _felt_ a hand clamping itself onto her head and she looked back to find Looking Glass with his arm outstretched. _Touching _her. _Restraining_ her from moving.

"Like the Boss-Lady said," James quipped. "We need to talk." He took one step forward, drawing her towards his chest as he did so.

And everything went black.

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)**—okay, i may have been incorrect in saying wu's interlude would be the longest. this has been in the works since... oh roughly the first arc when i was hammering out flurry's backstory. some of it got cut, then i tried to divide up the flashbacks with present day stuffs. it ended up pretty darn long._

_aanyhow, we're on the homestretch. this is where i have the final confrontation, and where else would a couple of mental-based capes have their final showdown? cliche, perhaps... but i reaaally couldnt think of a different way to conclude it. we'll see if i can pull it off._

_'til next week!_


	22. Reflection 3-07

**Reflection 3.07**

* * *

We met in Darkness.

A featureless blank devoid of any and all sensations—there was no touch, no feeling, no sight or sound. Neither of us could _see _or _hear_ each other, but we were still aware of their presence. We were still so closely attuned to each other it was as if the two of us were standing in broad daylight.

"Hello?" I called out.

I felt the other presence shifting almost reluctantly.

"You shoved me into your chest," the other voice grumbled. "Do you have any idea just how _weird_ that is?"

"I wanted to make sure I had your attention, Jamie."

"Poltergeist," she corrected.

"There's no one else around, Jamie," I countered. "You'll always be my little sister to me."

"Any family relation between us is just a fabrication of the mind," she pointed out. "Your parents are not mine, even if they share the exact same names."

"Okay, stop," I said firmly. "Here's the deal. I'm going to be talking to you. You're free to listen or not, but what you are _not _to do is come up with a snappy comment regarding how little the two of us share in common. That the two of us aren't really the same person or how our circumstances aren't really identical. I _get_ that now—what I want isn't the same thing you want—so there's no need to keep repeating that old argument. Deal?"

I had the impression of her crossing her arms as she regarded me sullenly. "Whatever."

_"Fantastic."_

She stared at me in silence for several long moments. "You seem to be quite bitter all of a sudden," she commented.

"Gee, I wonder why?" I replied, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out from my tone. "Maybe it has to do with the fact that you're doing your very level best to turn my life on its head."

"Not hard to do," she snorted. "Your life is _dull._ You have about as much presence in the world as a blank sheet of paper in the wind. It's not very hard to send it blowing out of control."

_"Why?"_ I demanded. "I keep asking but you just keep telling me that you're finally doing what you've _always _wanted to do without any restrictions. Or that nobody seems to _listen _to you. Or that everybody seems to have it in for you—you're just retaliating against them just as harshly. Well guess what? I've been looking back on my life and I think that if anything, I've been cutting you far _too much _slack. I've _tried_ to listen to you but you don't seem to _want _to explain. As for everybody being out to get you—you've just _attacked_ a group of heroes!"

"Not just you and Flurry; I also got her old boss and his current flavor of the month," she pointed out helpfully.

_"That's even worse!"_ I shouted. I sighed and palmed my forehead. "Jamie—"

"Poltergeist."

"—are you _trying_ to become a villain?!"

She didn't reply for several moments. Instead she looked around the Darkness—at my mindscape—the way a visiting guest might inspect a house's decor. She drifted back and forth as she surveyed the void from one 'end' to the 'other'. Finally she turned her attention back towards me. "I noticed you seem to have taken care of the little challenge I set upon you," she remarked. "Colour me impressed. How'd you manage it so quickly?"

I shook my head at the sudden change of topic, but decided to go along with her for a few moments at least. "I can see where and how we're connected," I explained. "The differences between you and I are pronounced enough to differentiate our energies if you know where to look. I admit I probably wouldn't know the first thing about forcing myself onto someone—that's likely your own powers at work there—but I think I know enough now to be able to throw off your influence over me."

She blinked in surprise at my explanation. "You can't have _possibly _learned how to do that in just a few days," she scoffed.

"Learned?" I replied. I shook my head. "No, not quite. There weren't really any techniques involved. I guess you could say that it's more like a different mindset," I said as I tapped my head. "More importantly, I think I've figured out something yourself that you might have overlooked."

She scoffed. "You. Figuring out something that _I_ missed. That's rich."

"You're not as strong as you say you are," I stated bluntly. "Think back to all the people you've tried to take over. At worst you've given them enough of a shock to knock them out briefly or make them stumble, but when was the last time you've taken control over something?"

"Let's see," she said, tapping her finger against her chin. "How about... _you?_ And there's also the matter of the fifty or so guys I just had a few minutes ago, perhaps you recall them as well?"

"Right," I admitted, "but Flurry told me you tried to get her too and failed. I don't think you've ever succeeded against Nightwalker. And would I be correct in saying that before you got to Duplex, you tried to hit Ajax? How'd that turn out?"

She stared at me for a long few moments. "My power _works_," she said at last.

I nodded. "It does, against birds, against cats, against people and things with very simple thought processes—"

"Oh, so now you're calling _yourself _a half-wit? What do you need me for, then?"

"—and me. But I don't think I can be categorised in the same grouping as the rest. I think it's something more. Something related to the link we share with each other."

"Let's get one thing straight," she said. She jabbed a finger at me, but had her other arm folded across her torso. "I don't—I don't _need_ you. There's nothing _special_ between us except for the fact that I'm stuck with you." I caught a flash of something in her expression, but her emotions were held in as tightly as the arm she had wrapped around herself.

I shook my head. "It's true, we've got something else." I met her disbelieving stare and held out a hand to wave her forward. "C'mon, I want to show you something."

She still looked unconvinced, but grudgingly followed as I turned and headed further into the Darkness. I led her deep into the depths of my psyche—to the breach in my mindscape where she had gained access to my world. I pointed it out to her. "You know what this is, right?"

"Of course," she replied. "It's how I figured out how to consciously cross-over into the other—_waaaait a sec,_ you didn't do anything to _my_ body, did you?!" she demanded.

"You mean like taking control over your body for the expressed purpose of taking it to strange places, speaking with strange people, and doing things you'd never have done yourself in a million years even _if _massive quantities of alcohol had been involved?" I asked dryly.

_"Yes,"_ she said heatedly. "Because if you did, then I _swear _you'll regret it when I totally—" she paused and blinked as what I'd been saying finally sunk in. "Oh."

"Yeah... I think that ship has sailed," I pointed out. "But no, to answer your question—I didn't do anything to your body. I was just exploring on my own, trying to figure out how the process worked for myself. Also, I was wondering about that thing on the bridge, I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Bridge? What bridge?"

"I'm talking about the bridge that spans the gap between us. Maybe you just didn't take enough time to perceive it, in too much of a rush perhaps?"

I floated through the gap and caught a glimpse of her following me through. I emerged into the brilliant darkness that my mind had categorised as The Bridge. A darkness even deeper than either of our minds, _emptier_ even that spanned the whole of this area. At the centre of it—or at least what I assumed was the centre—was a brilliant sliver of light. It did nothing to dispel the darkness around it—one moment it was completely pitch black, the next moment it was pure light. It was like a crystal in the way that it seemed to glow from within, yet partially obscured. Almost as if the shard was there, yet not _wholly _there. Part of our both of our worlds, yet _not_ belonging to either.

I was about to ask for Jamie's opinion when I noticed her simply continuing past me with a blank, unseeing expression on her face. I reached out to grab her, almost by reflex, before I'd even considered that neither of us could really touch anything in our current forms. It was to my surprise, then, when I succeeded in snaring her wrist and bringing her to a dead stop beside me.

The dead look in her eyes remained for several moments, but then she shook her head and they cleared up. Her gaze immediately went to the glowing shard, then towards me, then back to the shard. Finally she looked down at our linked arms and reeled away, tearing her hand out of my grasp. "What the—what is _that?!_" she demanded.

"I'm not sure," I admitted. "I was honestly sorta hoping you could tell me."

"I've... never seen this before," she said. _"Never."_ She looked around, as if noticing her surroundings for the first time. "Where are we?"

"As far as I can tell, we're between your world and mine." I shrugged. "I've been calling it The Bridge—not very imaginative, but I think it works."

"You're right, imagination is not one of your strong points." She glanced back to the opening from which we'd arrived from, forward to her destination, then finally floated forward towards the shard. "It seems apt, I guess." She leaned in closer, raising a hand as if to touch it and I held my breath in anticipation, carefully watching for any reaction.

It was almost anticlimactic when nothing happened as she pressed her hand against the glowing light. Emboldened, she began repeatedly tapping a finger against various points. "So what does it do, other than glow? I mean, not that there's anything _wrong_ with being shiny and all..."

I had to fight to hold back a grin as she trailed off. Her eyes were lit up with the same childish curiosity and wonder that had long characterised _Jamie_ for much of the time that I'd known her. For a brief moment, I could have even pretended that the last few days had not actually taken place.

Still, as much as I was loathe to interrupt this innocent interlude, there were still things we needed to discuss and this distraction was not a good way to keep up a dialogue. "Jamie..."

"Poltergeist," she absent-mindedly corrected me, still prodding at the light.

_"Jamie,"_ I repeated firmly. I waited as she reluctantly pulled herself away from the shard, her face losing its good cheer and settling into a studiously neutral expression. "I think this is a point in my favor," I remarked. "You can't know _everything_. You might never have even found this if it weren't for me."

"Maybe... or maybe I _would _have." She shrugged. "It didn't take you long to figure out how to control your own body once I'd demonstrated the process for you, did it now?"

"You're missing the point," I said. "_Neither_ of us know everything about ourselves. We're barely qualified to plan out our own lives on our own, much less unilaterally make decisions for the other." I pressed a hand to my chest. "It took me a long time—and the help of an outside perspective—to realise it, but I've done you a disservice. I've let you run free far too long without any real supervision, but I also tried to force my world upon you. I never really gave proper consideration to your own existence in your world."

I bowed my head in apology. "I'm sorry, Jamie. I did this to you."

She lifted an eyebrow at me. "...That's it? You take responsibility for everything I've been doing as if you had any say in it? Isn't that _exactly_ what you were doing before—trying to dictate my life when you thought I didn't know any better?"

I looked up, confused. "If I hadn't interfered with your life, you might not have done the things that you did. How is that _not_ my fault?"

"Aargh," she slapped the heel of her hand against her forehead. "And here I was getting ready to hear an earth-shattering epiphany that would make me see the errors of my ways and bring me back to the side of good." She said the last sentence in a falsetto, fluttering her eyelashes and clasping her hands together against her cheek. Head tilted to the side, she then narrowed her eyes at me. "You _suck_ at this, James."

"I-I'm sorry?" I stammered reflexively.

She lowered her hands and jabbed a finger at me. "Let's get one thing straight: you are _incredibly_ self-centred and you have a massive guilt complex." She pulled her hand back and used that finger to begin counting off points on her other hand. "You've blamed yourself for the trigger event that gave us our powers. You've blamed yourself for my coma. You're apparently blaming yourself for not being a hard enough authority figure. And you're blaming yourself for not being able to 'control' me when I decided I suddenly felt like going all eeevil~" She wiggled the fingers on both her hands as she said the last part, then held out her hand with all fingers outstretched.

She lowered one finger. "Nothing and nobody _determines_ who gets a trigger event—any ideas to the contrary are just ridiculous. Everything we know about them tells us that they're just a response to severe traumatic events. If _anybody _is responsible, they'd have to be a God-tiered being of some kind."

She lowered another finger, "Next, my coma. I seem to recall having said my piece on that and I'm not going to repeat myself. And no—before you even _think_ about it—the accident where we triggered wasn't your fault either." She peered at me closely, then nodded as I remained silent. "Good, I was starting to worry you'd find a way to blame yourself for _that_ too, somehow."

Another finger went down, then the last one as well. "I've said this before as well, but I guess this is important enough to say it again. You're _not _the boss of me. You don't control me, you don't order me. I am not your puppet, nor am I your minion. The days where you just point me in a direction, where you tell me to fly and I reply with, 'yes, but how far?'—those days are long past.

"I'm not doing what _you_, or what _anybody _else wants anymore. From now on, I'm doing whatever _I_ want."

I struggled to find my voice again in the face of her outburst. "Jamie, what _is _it that you want?"

"What I _want_ is for you, your friends, and your parents to take their compassion and self-righteous kindliness and shove it up their arses." She loomed over me as if to jab a finger against my chest. "What I want is to have my own set of friends and loved ones that aren't tangentially attached to you. What I want is for people to look at me without _pity_. I'm not an invalid, I'm not a charity case, I'm not helpless!

"I am _not_ your crippled little sister, James. I'm not even part of your family. Hells, I'm not even a part of _my_ family!" She slapped a hand against her chest. "I'm _me_. I don't have to define myself by associations to you. I—I don't need you..."

She settled back, breathing heavily as she recovered from her rant. "I'm me," she repeated quietly. Her voice grew in strength as she straightened up to her full height. "I'm not Looking Glass' sidekick. I'm not 'J'—not just your _power_. I'm not your partner. I'm Jamie. And... and if it means breaking out from the mould you've cast me into..." she said as her shoulders slumped slightly, "...if the world wont let me be who I want to be, then I can be a villain too. I can be Poltergeist."

I blinked as she wrapped her arms around herself, her mouth moving silently as she seemed to repeat her own words to herself. Despite the fact that we were currently the same size as each other, she had never seemed quite so small as she seemed to be now. I shifted my focus to the side and saw the shard twinkling there, if not quite between us, then equally distant.

'A Bridge,' I had called it. A Bridge that spanned our worlds. A single, alien presence that linked the two of us together—two individuals out of the infinite numbers there must have been in the multiverse. Not that I had met any other copies of myself, but I didn't think it was a coincidence that the two of us had developed parahuman abilities in tandem with each other. It seemed obvious in hindsight, but I still kicked myself a bit for not having put the pieces together earlier.

An idea formed within my mind and I turned back towards Jamie, the heavy weight of a resolution settling across my shoulders. "You 'can be' Poltergeist," I repeated her words. "_Can._ Not _want _to be."

She lifted her eyes towards me and narrowed them. "Your point?" Her tone was so venomous that I nearly reconsidered my plan of action.

I mentally shook my head and pressed on. "Let's put aside hero versus villain for a moment," I said. "Jamie, if you had the chance to be a normal girl—if you could be a regular person without any of this cape nonsense—would you take that opportunity?"

She looked down at herself—at her whip-thin, transparent, unnaturally proportioned body. She looked at me, identical in almost every way except for subtle differences in our facial features. She slowly nodded. "If—and this is a _big_ if—none of this had ever happened, I think I might have been happier. Why?" she demanded, suddenly suspicious.

I jerked my thumb towards the shard between us. "I think I might have an idea of what _this _thing is. It's what's maintaining our link. More than that, I'm willing to bet that it's the source of our powers in some manner. I'm not _one-hundred_ percent certain... but still reasonably confident. I have no idea if it'll fix anything, but what do you think might happen if we somehow destroyed it? Or at least removed it?"

_"What?"_ Her face paled, a remarkable thing considering our spectral forms. She glanced towards the shard again as if seeing it for the first time. "That's... but what will happen to us?"

"Well, if my theory is correct, we'll both get kicked back into our respective bodies and our own worlds, we'll lose our powers, and we'll probably never meet again. You get a clean break from everything related to me—the chance to build your own relationships without having to worry that I'm influencing your circumstances somehow." I paused. "I'm not sure if you'd get the use of your legs back, but if that's a side-effect of your powers, then maybe?"

"Wha—but... what about _you?_" she demanded. "Wait wait _wait._ If you do this, we'll be separated too—you're okay with getting _rid_ of me?"

I did my best to keep my face expressionless. "As long as you're happy, then yeah. Like you just said, I seem to have a 'massive guilt complex' where you're concerned. I'd go even further and call it a sort of self-imposed martyrdom. If this is something that will improve your life, I'm all for it." I raised my hand and energies from around the area began streaming around it. "So? We can solve most of our issues right now. The only cost is our powers, but that's sort of a given for us to become normal again. Mundane, even."

"But... it's not just our _powers_... you..."

"Sunny might still be mad at you for a little while, but there's no way you could be a threat if you didn't have me around. I don't know if she'd still let you near her sister, but once you show yourself to be harmless, she might come around."

"But... you..."

I shrugged. "I'd probably lose what little contact I have with the others when they move on, but I guess I'm used to not having very many friends to begin with. I can cope." I floated towards the shard with my arm outstretched.

"You're bluffing," she said frantically. Her eyes flickered back and forth between my hand and the shard. "Even _if_ that was the source of our powers—which I'm still not convinced of!—there's no way you'd destroy it. I bet you don't even know _how_ to destroy it!"

"Maybe," I admitted with a shrug. "I do have a horrible track record of figuring out new things on my own. But then again, I've known about this for... how long? And you had never even _noticed_ it until now." I turned to face her, my composure breaking as I gave her a sad smile. "_Sayonara_, Little Sister," I said. I fell back onto the language Mum had drilled into our heads when we were younger. A final touchstone to happier days.

_Good bye._

I lowered myself into a formal bow, not meeting her eyes. "Despite everything that's just happened, I'm truly glad to have gotten to know you."

I turned back to face the shard and inspected the mental energies wrapped around my arm. Closing my eyes, I drew it back, then swung it forward with all of my 'strength' behind it.

_"NO!"_ Jamie shrieked.

I was suddenly thrown sideways as she careened into me at full speed. There was no ground for us to fall upon, so the force of her tackle sent us flipping topsy-turvy through the void. She grabbed at my arm even as the spiralling energy around it vanished into the ether, holding it away from my body as if that would keep me from resummoning it. Eventually we came to a stop with one of her hands holding onto my shoulder while the other grabbed at my wrist.

_"Don't leave me all alone!"_ she pleaded. Her eyes were wide and brimming with unshed tears. For the first time in a very long while, I could _feel_ her emotions as the strength of her sudden fear and despair came crashing through the bond. "Not _again!_ I... you're all I have left. Everybody else is gone. Please, don't leave me alone... "

I remained still, making sure to keep my face impassive in the face of her pleas. "But what about your life? If we don't do this, we'll still be linked together for who-knows-how-long? You'll have to put up with having to deal with my friends and colleagues, as well as me possibly interfering with your own relationships."

"I... I don't know," she said brokenly. "I want to be my own person—_really,_ I do! But... I can't imagine a life without you there. Under my thumb, maybe. Yelling at me. Fighting me. Sometimes... I _suppose _you could be helping me too. But you're _always _with me. And I'm always with you. I just don't want _you _to leave me by myself like everybody else has."

My narrowed my eyes and did my best impression of a stone statue. "You might never walk again. You might have to put up with looks of sympathy—or _pity._ People will judge you for your perceived disability. For the circumstances of your life, especially if you continue down this path."

Her face screwed up into a look of irritation. "That would _really _suck, I'm not gonna pretend that it won't. But... it's still better than having to be on my own."

"Sunny might never forgive you. She might _never _let you near Karen ever again. Heck, _Flurry _might never forgive you for what you've done today."

"Flurry can just sit on it and spin, for all I care," Jamie replied. "She can't do jack to me. Sunny... Karen... I don't know. I don't want to have to lose the first friend I've made since we triggered. But..." Her shoulders slumped and she pulled away from me to hug her arms against her body. "But I just don't _know_."

"So," I said, brushing myself off and rising back into a more vertical posture. "What's it going to be, then? You don't want to go back to normal, but we can't continue like _this _either. No more villainy—at least in my world. That's me setting down my limits. I can promise that I'll _try_ to be more considerate of your thoughts when I'm in control. If I'm not, feel free to knock me over the head. But you can't toe the line anymore, either. You've got to be on your _best_ behaviour from this point onward."

"Always?" she asked. "I can't—I don't know—do a bit of childish disobedience? I don't want to go back to being air-headed, happy Jamie. I want to be _me_."

"For the immediate future, while you're in my world, you _behave,_" I reiterated. "If we can get through this situation in one piece, then I'll reconsider. When we're in your world... I suppose I'll have to follow your lead, there."

"Until I get arrested," she grumbled. "Just... if they do, don't leave me? Ever? You'll stay by me?"

"Always," I promised. I finally allowed myself a smile as I extended one hand towards her. "_Okaeri_, Jamie."

_Welcome back._

She waffled for a brief moment, chewing on her lip as she stared at everything but me. Finally, she ducked her head and peered up at me through her bangs as she took my hand. "_Tadaima_, Big Brother."

_I'm home._

She was beaming as I took her hand and pulled her back through my mindscape.

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)—**i'm a bit nervous about this update, i wasn't sure i could properly 'resolve' the conflict i had put into place with the characters. a straight up fight was out—not only are my actions scenes kinda... meh... in my own eyes, it wouldn't have worked between the two J's._

_also there was a second part to this update dealing with some of the real-world events that would follow, but i felt like it sorta killed the flow of the narrative, so i decided to cut it out. i'm almost positive that at least one of the things happening in this chapter will be considered something of an asspull, and i'd hoped to resolve/explain it in the second part, but again i think that ending this chapter here gives gives it more impact, and the second part will sorta feel like a letdown after it._

_aaanyhow. let me know what you think in the reviews. are you happy with the way this was resolved? did you expect something else? are you worried about a karma houdini? we're not quite in the aftermath just yet! but i'm curious to know._


	23. Shattered Glass (Epilogue)

Kagami Shirakawa had long ago come to terms with the fact that the gods would not bless her family with any more children. Not that she wasn't happy with the one that she had, but there were often times that she'd found herself wishing she had a daughter to dote upon.

Alas, fate appeared to conspire against her and her family. Tragedies, both personal and global, had forced them to reprioritise their lives. There was always a "when we get through _this_"-type of moment to wait before she could consider bringing a new life into their hectic world. Between her husband dropping out from school, the loss of the family's only car, and finally the majority of their extended family perishing in the Endbringer attack back in Kyushu, there had just been no end to the delays keeping James from having a little brother or sister.

Kagami hummed softly to herself as she gathered up the morning's laundry, carefully folding and sorting them between three growing piles. Life had finally returned to some semblance of normality, or at least a comfortable routine she could lose herself in and not have to think about her recent troubles.

She would wake up in the pre-dawn mornings and accept delivery of the day's produce from the nearby grocer. Toss everything that required refrigeration and freezing into the proper storage lockers and leave out the rest for sorting at a later time. Shake Saburo awake and take a shower. Get dressed and wake up her husband _again_ as she started preparing the first set of vegetables and retrieved the previous day's leftovers for the day's soup stock. Continue until her husband was _finally_ awake and coherent enough to take over with the preparations, then set about cleaning the restaurant floor and the flat they had rented above it. If it was laundry day—as today was—then collect and start the machines running whilst she cleaned some more. Simple. Easy. Requiring _just_ enough of her concentration so that her mind couldn't allow itself to wander.

A shriek from upstairs was enough of a variance to break her out of her routine. Dropping the shirt she had been folding onto the appropriate pile—Saburo's—she began the trek to the second floor. James had been a fairly precocious child growing up, but after his accident he had become more withdrawn and much quieter. Kagami might have thought he was being _secretive_ if he'd been a little older, but that would have been a ridiculous notion to entertain.

When the cry repeated itself, she quickened her pace, rushing towards the end of the hallway and the doorway that led to her precious child's bedroom. _"James?"_ she called out worriedly. _"What is going on?!"_

_"Okaa-san!"_ she heard her baby shout. She was brought up short as the door thumped, as if something had just pressed it closed from inside. "Um, hang on, Mum... my, uh, my room's too messy!"

Kagami tried the doorknob was wasn't too surprised to find that the door was barred shut. That didn't keep her from being... concerned. She banged her fist against the wood and tried the handle again to no avail. _"James! I heard screaming!"_

"I... just tripped! I was surprised!" He dropped his volume suddenly, but not quite low enough for her to miss his next words. _"What are you still _doing_ out here?! Hide!"_

Kagami had always wished her son would be more outgoing and sociable, but his Japanese ancestry had made him sufficiently _different_ enough that he had a hard time of making friends in his schools. After the accident that had claimed the family car, he had become even more withdrawn—almost _secretive_.

_"I don't wanna,"_ she heard the reply. It was as if James was speaking in a slight falsetto.

For a brief moment, she had almost thought her son had made a new friend. An _actual_ friend. But her hopes were dashed when she heard the voice answering James' quiet demand. He was just talking to himself. Well, as things went an imaginary friend wasn't too bad. At least it showed that he was striving for _some_ sort of companionship.

Her son's harsh whispers sounded from behind the door again. _"Get out, now! Wait... no! Nonono not _that _way!"_

Kagami's train of thought came to an abrupt halt as a blue head popped out of the door she was banging against. It was her son, a _glowing_ blue version of her son. _Yuurei._ She could scarcely breathe—a ghost had taken the appearance of _her son_ and had been in his room for who-knows-how-long?

The spectre's eyes seemed to light up as she noticed Kagami standing in her path. "Mama!" it cried out happily.

Kagami's eyes rolled up into her head as she keeled over into a dead faint.

"Huh," the ghost said, looking down. "Was it something I said?"

...

* * *

.

**Shattered Glass**  
**Epilogue**

.

"_We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves.  
We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we're wrong. Someone we trust." —David Levithan_

.

* * *

In a dimly lit room, a young man rested. His dark, shaggy hair was spread across the pillow behind his head, all but ensuring that he'd have a rather _interesting_ case of bed-head whenever he deigned to wake and sit up. A series of light taps against the doorway prompted him to do just that as his eyes blinked open and he sat up.

The door opened quietly to admit a tall brunette in a white blouse and denim jeans. She hit a switch against the wall to bring the lights up to full luminance and walked briskly towards the small table that served as a nightstand. Once there, she dropped a rather large stack of papers onto the table with a loud _thump_.

From his reclining position on his bed, James' face went as pale as the bedsheets he was lying underneath as he blanched. "You must be joking," he said in a dismal tone.

"I rarely get the chance to indulge," Elaine replied as she fetched a chair from beside the door and moved it into place beside the bed.

"Was that a denial or a confirmation?" the patient asked.

"Yes," his visitor replied, prompting the bed-ridden cape to slump against his pillows. "How are you feeling?"

James glanced at his surroundings, taking in the various hospital furnishings surrounding him. "I'd like to say that I'm feeling fine, but I guess that's not exactly true? How long was I out?"

"Just overnight." Elaine settled into the chair as she picked up the first sheet from the pile, running her eyes over the form's headers. "How well do you remember the events of yesterday?"

"Not a lot, I guess. Some of it," James scratched at an errant itch against his forehead as he stared at the ceiling. "Mostly impressions—not any real memories, come to think of it."

Elaine nodded as if she had expected that answer. "Light concussion," she informed him. "You were within the blast radius of a moderately powerful explosion."

"Huh?"

"You got blown up," a maliciously cheerful voice explained. An electric-blue ghost girl floated down from her position near the room's ceiling. "Beaten by a _lit-tle girl~ _" Jamie chimed in a sing-song voice.

James looked over to find the Elaine's mouth pressed into a thin line as she watched the spectre settle into place above his stomach. He managed to catch her eye and discreetly pointed one finger at his counterpart, but the other cape shook her head slightly.

"Tianak," she clarified. "A parahuman from the Philippines with fairly high Master and Blaster ratings. She generally travels the world acting as a something of a mercenary, although she does not describe herself as such. Her ability allows her to produce... _creatures_ that bud off from her exposed flesh—creatures that are semi-autonomous and are created with one of several possible abilities. Some are capable of short-ranged electrical discharges, some can spit or bleed acid... and some simply run to the closest target and detonate themselves."

"They looked like babies," Jamie said. She shivered. "Really _creepy_-looking babies." She brought her arms behind her back and dropped her head. She looked as if she'd be fidgeting with her feet, had she any legs in this form. "It was kinda my fault, I thought I'd found a civilian survivor of the battle."

"A common misconception," Elaine sighed. "Tianak's _modus operandi _is to insert herself into a location ahead of time, disguising herself and one of her _products_ as mother and child. She was the other member of Nightwalker's parahuman assets after Duplex. However, it would be remiss of me if I did not point out that I had been given some clues regarding activities that matched her previous behaviours. Unfortunately, I did not fully process the information enough to confirm her presence in the area. If there is any fault to be had, it would be mine."

"Well, I'll accept the spirit of your apology, but... " James nodded towards the stack of papers she was leafing through. "If this is your idea of a peace-offering, I'm thinking I don't want to forgive you just yet."

"Hm." Elaine simply acknowledged the point as she drew a pen from her pocket. "I have already been debriefed by the proper authorities and they accepted my offer to assist you with your own report whilst you recovered."

The bedridden cape grimaced and lifted himself into a slightly more vertical position. He reluctantly held out his hand for the pen, "Thanks, but you don't need to worry about me. I'm fully prepared to take the blame for this fiasco."

"Ah. Very well then," Elaine said. She flipped through the stack for a few moments before pulling out one particular sheet near the bottom of the pile. "This will make things easier, then.

"James Shirakawa, also known as the parahuman 'Looking Glass'," she read. "As of oh-nine-hundred hours this morning you have been relieved of your duties as a government-supported cape."

...

* * *

Jamie looked around at the room she found herself in. The room was a pleasing shade of pastels in a cream and light blue color scheme. There was a rather comfortable bed with a footlocker—one large enough to hold all her meagre supply of clothes—placed at one end. A mid-sized desk with a computer ran along the wall next to the bed, with a large enough space for her to park her wheelchair before it without too much trouble. Even the floor was a smooth surface to allow her to easily move her chair around.

The problem lay in the fact that all of the furniture was a lightweight plastic. It was sturdy enough not to creak or otherwise move as she shifted her weight, but it was also bolted down to the floor to keep her from being able to rearrange any of it. The computer's screen was inset into the desk itself, with the rest of the hardware presumably inaccessible to her. The wheelchair itself would lock its wheels the moment it left the room, reliant on external radio control or an override from a guard to move itself around.

It was a nice room, but it was a prison—at least in Jamie's eyes. Her food was controlled, her visitors were controlled, and she was pretty much restricted in every way she could have thought of.

"When I asked you to stay with me if I was ever captured, I didn't think you'd _already gotten me arrested_," she grumbled towards the ceiling. She was stretched out across the bed with her arms placed behind her head, her legs dragging uselessly against the covers. She bounced her upper body slightly against the mattress, feeling it give way and bounce back. At least it was a _nice_ prison...

"Well, to be fair, I didn't _quite_ have this in mind," James protested from above her. "I knew Sunny was kind of ticked at you, but I hadn't realised she was _this_ upset. I just asked her to find you some professional help!"

She reached out with one hand and waved a finger through the air as if she were writing. "Note-to-self, anytime James gets the idea to _help_, run for the hills."

"At least it's not as bad as it could have been," James said. "It could have been an actual prison cell instead of a psych ward."

"I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy~" Jamie sing-songed to herself.

"As far as the staff knows, you're talking to yourself," James pointed out helpfully.

"Nonsense, they know what you are." She waved a hand to indicate the modified furnishings, "Why else would they have set up all of this stuff you can't move around? And even if you did, they're light enough that we couldn't use them as weapons or to bust down the walls. Nope, we are well and truly stuck here until somebody decides to let us out. On the bright side, I think we have internet."

"Small favors," James muttered.

Just then a speaker near the door chimed with a single musical tone. The tone repeated itself twice, followed by a fourth tone at a slightly higher pitch as if it were the starting light for a racing game. At the same time the fourth chime sounded, the door hissed open and a tall woman dressed in a casual-looking sweater and skirt combination stepped inside. The kind, motherly look she was probably going for _might _have worked if her hair hadn't been pulled back into a severe-looking bun.

The pair of helmeted, faceless guards flanking her—both armed with PRT-licensed foam sprayers—might have also done their part to dispel that image.

"Patient two-zero-five-four, _Poltergeist_?" the woman asked in a no-nonsense tone.

"s'Jamie," the girl muttered. "I've been told I probably shouldn't use that other name anymore."

The woman gave no sign that she had heard her, instead directing one of the guards to retrieve the wheelchair and push it against the bed where Jamie could slide into it. "You have a visitor," she informed Jamie. "Would you please come with us?"

Jamie levered herself into a sitting position, eyeing the guard warily. "As if I have a choice?" she asked rhetorically.

...

* * *

"Relieved of duty?" James repeated blankly.

"Indeed," Elaine replied. "As you may or may not have been aware, there was a third-party present on the battlefield during the recent conflict."

"Yeah, you just told me about—"

"Not Tianak. An unknown parahuman interfered with both side of the conflict, although we are attempting to ascertain if their involvement may have preceded the confrontation itself." Elaine turned her head slightly to stare directly into James' eyes. "We have assigned this unknown parahuman a temporary Master-slash-Stranger classification. He or she has demonstrated the ability to take control over other capes and while there have only been two known victims as of this time, it has been decided that the most stringent safeguards should be put into place."

James and Jamie traded glances with each other, only for Elaine to call their attention back to her with a snap of her fingers.

"Please listen _carefully._" The female cape's voice had taken on an odd pitch, as if she were reciting lines from a script. "James, this unknown cape has called themselves 'Poltergeist' and managed to take over both yourself and the parahuman known as Duplex. Can you tell us _anything_ you may know about this individual?"

Even as she asked the question, Elaine was minutely shaking her head.

James blinked and glanced at Jamie again. His counterpart looked just as confused as he was. "Err... no?"

Elaine leaned back slightly. "That is disappointing to hear," she said. "Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, Master and Stranger protocols are in effect. This means we cannot hold the victims responsible for their recent activities. For Duplex this means he will not be charged with any crimes for his involvement with Nightwalker's group. He is currently under voluntary custody at another facility whilst they sort the details."

"And I get suspended?" James asked.

"As another one of Poltergeist's victims you are also under no small amount of suspicion. It is a matter of record that you assaulted a fellow hero whilst in the line of duty. Until we can determine the full extent of Poltergeist's influence, you are relieved of your day-to-day activities," Elaine clarified. "You are still able to participate in engagements against threats of A-class or above at your own discretion, or in actions against lesser threats whilst under the supervision of a trusted cape."

"Supervision by a trusted cape," James repeated slowly. His eyes tracked back to Elaine's. "Such as, someone like... you?"

"If you wish it," Elaine said neutrally, although James though he could detect a slightly pleased expression on her face. "In fact, I am certain that as time goes by without any further incidents—and memories fade—you will find your restrictions gradually relaxed if not removed altogether. However... should this unknown Master-class parahuman ever make a reappearance, things may not go quite as well for you."

And just like that, any trace of approval vanished as Elaine's eyes and voice took on a flinty edge. "It is therefore in your best interests that Poltergeist never show his or face again." Although she kept her eyes squarely in line with James', Jamie was the first one to look away nervously. "Have I made myself clear?"

"Yep," James nodded.

Jamie squeaked something that might have been a _yes'm_.

...

* * *

Jamie let the guard roll her into place against the table. Although she spotted the old-fashioned telephone receiver sitting on its surface immediately, she still fidgeted in her chair for several moments before finally lifting it from its cradle and placing it against her ear.

"Hey," she said, finally lifting her head to stare through the glass and the girl sitting opposite her.

"Hey there," Karen replied with a small wave. Her habitual smile was still present, if smaller than normal.

"What are you doing here?" Jamie asked. "I mean, not that I'm not glad to see you but this is sorta counter-productive, don't you think?"

"Eh," Karen shrugged. "I promised you that I'd visit you no matter where you ended up, didn't I? Of course at the time I was sort of picturing a group home or whatever apartment Sunny had dumped you onto, but I'm sure a psychiatric ward still works."

Jamie turned around to give James a narrow-eyed stare, one hand raised to cut off any side comments.

The spectre held his hands up defensively. "I know... I know, 'you are not crazy'."

Grinning in satisfaction, Jamie turned back towards her visitor. When she saw Karen's curious expression, however, she felt the smile slip away from her face and she ducked her head in apology. "Thanks. For coming to see me, I mean. You didn't have to—in fact I wouldn't blame you if you just left me behind and never saw me again—not wanting anything to do with me."

Karen's smile turned somewhat brittle. "I did consider it, to be honest." She looked away, unwilling to meet Jamie's eyes. "I mean, you did kinda get a bit weird there... and to be honest the way you seem to have fixated on me is _more _than a little bit creepy."

"It wasn't like that!" Jamie protested. "I just... I wanted to have a friend of my own so badly..."

Karen was silent for several moments. "A month ago—maybe even a week ago—I wouldn't have believed you. But if what James was saying is true... you didn't really have... _anyone_, did you?"

"Not really, no," Jamie admitted. She glanced over her shoulder. "Everything and everyone I knew was tied up with James over there. I guess I just wanted to be my own person... in the worst possible way." She turned back towards the glass and bowed her head. "For what it's worth, I'm so sorry."

"Mmm..." Karen hummed thoughtfully.

"So..." Head still bowed, Jamie flicked her eyes back up to the other girl. "Can you forgive me?"

"...I'm thinking about it."

...

* * *

"Wait, just wait a moment." James held up a hand to stall Elaine's continuing explanation. "How does this work? I mean, not that I'm not sort of glad that I'm getting off so lightly, but to be perfectly honest, I've sort of been running through this type of scenario in my head ever since I... realised the extent of Poltergeist's abilities."

Elaine arched an eyebrow. "That long?" she commented.

"Er, yeah," the other cape replied sheepishly. "What I mean is... why am I being forgiven so easily? Relatively speaking, that is."

"I understand," she interrupted him. "The fact of the matter is that we have a very short window of opportunity to allow the situation to be resolved in this manner. Many of the capes with more seniority than myself—those who would ordinarily be making these decisions—are currently occupied elsewhere at the moment."

"Occupied?"

Elaine hesitated briefly, then pressed on. "An Endbringer attack began roughly ninety minutes ago. Leviathan, United States, somewhere along their eastern shoreline. The Protectorate has deployed their usual forces, which includes much of their local capes as well as their higher-profile leaders and accompanying teams. On this side, the Suits and the King's Men are closely monitoring the situation in the event that the on-site capes call for reinforcements. As it is, they do not have the time nor energy to spare for—what is in the end—a relatively minor scuffle."

James' head slumped against his pillow. "Endbringer attack... Bloody hell, that's lovely timing. Wait, why didn't you go?"

Elaine smiled bitterly. "I'd like to point out that most water-based powers tend to not work well with a hydrokinetic of Leviathan's strength, but to be honest I'm afraid I may have lost my nerve."

James blinked. "You were afraid?"

"...anxious. I was anxious."

Jamie nodded sagely. "She got _cold _feet."

"Don't you start."

...

* * *

"See, the thing is," Karen began, "I know I'm not exactly the easiest person to get along with. I like to push other people's buttons a bit too much for their comfort. It's why _I _don't have many friends of my own. Also, I'm a geek. Most people don't expect girls to be geeks. It threatens their little worldviews."

Jamie shifted uneasily in her chair. "But, that just means we understand where we're both coming from, right? I mean, our situations aren't exactly the same but the end result is?"

"Maybe. I'll admit I definitely understand where you're coming from. But there's a difference between understanding and forgiveness." Karen tapped a finger against the table and began to run it around in a circle. "I won't say you've earned my eternal wrath... but you _did _do some pretty messed up stuff. It's not so easy to let that slide."

"I guess," Jamie admitted reluctantly. The previous days' events ran through her mind. Assaulting Karen and her sister. Attacking Wu's gang when they tried to retrieve her. Going off to help Flurry and her allies to beat the bad guys, only to turn on them when things didn't quite go her way.

She had been sure—in the heat of the moment—that all of these actions had good reasons behind them, but now she couldn't even understand what she had been thinking. Admittedly, Wu's minions weren't exactly paragons of virtue and she wasn't going to shed any tears over their broken bodies... but at least they were acting to help another person. What could she claim?

"I know I've done some things which can't even be taken back."

Karen nodded seriously. "Definitely. I mean, you got Sunny and Wu Lung together. That is something I absolutely cannot abide."

"Wait, what?" Jamie lifted her head in surprise.

"I mean, I was kind of knocked out for most of it, but in between the times when she'd be fussing over me, she would seek him out and... and _talk_ to him! Like he was a normal person! Not even _one_ slap!" Karen slumped against the table's surface.

"Er..." Jamie eloquently replied.

"She should be _hating _him! I thought she did! My whole worldview has been compromised! Jamie, _what have you done?!_"

"I—I'm not following..."

"That _creep_ has been holding a torch for my sister for _years!_ And _you_ gave him the excuse to do something all _noble_ and get his psycho claws into her. And it's _all_ your fault."

"What."

...

* * *

"I've got a question" James said.

Elaine paused on her way out, one hand already on the door handle as she turned around. "Yes?"

"What happened with Tianak anyhow? The cape that uh... blew me up?"

"Ah." Elaine crossed her arms and leaned back against the door. "As I mentioned before, I was not entirely aware of her presence, so her assault caught me off guard. If it were not for Jamie stumbling upon one of her children, we may have been completely surprised."

Jamie threw out her chest and cocked her head. "Praise me more!"

"As it was, her discovery was the excuse Tianak needed to launch her attacks. Jamie was unable to react in time and did _nothing _to contribute beyond finding her and earning her wrath."

"On second thought, forget I was ever there."

"...and, well... I may have mentioned that some of her creations can act as suicide bombers."

"I blew up."

"You blew up," Elaine confirmed. "On the bright side, you were not engaged by one of her acid spitters."

James shuddered at the mental image of the possible outcome. "So how did you beat her?" His eyes flicked towards the doorway. "The same way you... drove Poltergeist away?"

"Fortunately for us, I had possessed the foresight to enlist Volley's aid prior to entering the battlefield. It took him some time, but he was able to contribute to our victory at that crucial moment."

"Volley was there?" James perked up. "Wow... and here I thought he had trouble getting around."

_"Ahem,"_ Jamie coughed into her hand. "He wasn't really present. _Think _about it, Big Brother. Why do we call him 'Volley'?"

"Because he likes to stand off at a distance and rain down... " James trailed off as his brain caught up. His eyes widened as he turned towards Elaine for confirmation. "From that far away?"

"It did take him some time to calculate a firing solution that would be accurate enough for the distances involved, but he came through in the end." Elaine had that 'pleased but not quite showing it'-expression on her face again as she recounted the achievement. "It is _almost _fortunate that the villain showed up when she did, else he would have expended all of that effort for naught."

James glanced towards Jamie.

"Big booms," his counterpart explained. "And _very _shiny. I liked."

"Tianak retreated at some point during the barrage," Elaine said. "Whilst we were unable to track her movements, the area of effect was enough to destroy all of her remaining assets."

"So... we won?"

"It would be more accurate to say that we did not lose horribly. Nightwalker's original gang still got away with their ill-gotten gains. We were able to capture one parahuman from their side, but five others from ours were temporarily taken out of action." Elaine gave him a pointed stare. "If you feel up to it, we can begin tracking him down as early as tomorrow."

James hesitated and threw a glance towards Jamie. "Actually,I've been thinking... "

...

* * *

"I can't imagine Sunny was too pleased with you being here."

"Yeaaah... you could say she had some issues with my decision," the other girl drawled. She made a face, "New beau aside, she's... not very happy with you at the moment."

Jamie nodded glumly.

"I mean, you only assaulted both of us with a parahuman ability, then kidnapped me and took me into a run-down shack out in who-knows-where."

Jamie's head dipped closer to the table's surface as she slumped over at the reminder. "Y-yeah... I guess I did."

"I mean, she probably hates your guts right now..."

The parahuman's head had fallen against the table, cradled in her arms.

"...doesn't want _anything_ to do with you."

"You can stop now... " a pitiful voice emerged from behind her arms, barely audible from the handset.

Karen gave Jamie a tight smile as she slowly crawled her way back into an upright position. "Anyhow, even if she's not liking it, at least she's fine with letting me make my own decisions. Y'know, unlike _some _other people."

Jamie's face fell. "You're enjoying this," she muttered darkly.

"I wake up each day looking for ways to amuse myself. It's the only way I can remain sane." Karen reached up to adjust her glasses. "Hint, hint."

Almost in spite of herself, Jamie felt a small smile growing on her face. "Thank you, Karen. For looking out for me. And if she'll accept it, pass my own thanks and apology to your sister."

"Do it yourself. You're not in here forever, are you?" Karen flashed her another grin, this one more authentic. "I think your guard-person is giving me a scowl, so my time must be up."

"Will—" Jamie blurted out before she could stop herself. "Will you... come visit again?"

Karen paused as she half-rose from her chair, tilting her head in thought. She nodded. "Sure."

...

* * *

"You are certain?" Elaine asked.

James scratched the back of his head nervously. "Yeah... I want to try to see what I can come up with on my own. I mean, I'll do it if you want me to, but otherwise..."

"You wish to find your own path. Something you've chosen to do for yourself," she concluded.

"Yeah."

"Did you already have something in mind?" Elaine asked curiously.

"Well, kind of? But not really. I mean, I've spent so many years doing just one thing... trying to find something to replace that is just..." James shrugged helplessly. "I mean, I considered copying you and trying to run a homeless shelter or something..."

Elaine blinked. "Me?"

"—but I'm not sure I could take in strangers as easily as you probably could."

"Back up one moment, I believe now should be a good time for you to tell me _exactly _what went on in this... other world of yours."

"It's Jamie's, technically. Anyhow I was also thinking maybe take up wildlife photography. Can you imagine the kind of shots I could get if I can tell the animal what to do? That'd be pretty neat."

"Cameras are just a _bit_ expensive..." Jamie pointed out.

"I know, but I've still got some money saved up. Anyhow, aside from those two ideas I haven't really figured anything out. It's harder than I thought it would be."

"You could take up skateboarding," the spectre suggested.

"That is an awfully random suggestion," James countered.

"Well, your ideas suck! Find something more interesting to do!"

"It's not about what _you _think is interesting, it's what _I_ think!"

"Do you really think sitting around taking pictures of squirrels is interesting?"

"...no, I suppose not."

"See? You've got _no_ clue. Now then, what about..."

...

Elaine leaned back and watched the show as the bedridden cape and his counterpart began squabbling over their future plans. Perhaps she should have put in her own thoughts before their conversation had degenerated into... this. At the same time, however, she found it oddly relaxing to watch the two fighting over a relatively unimportant subject like any other pair of siblings.

She would certainly need to be on her guard around the two in the future, especially Jamie. But for the moment Elaine allowed herself to indulge in the feeling of a job well done. Poltergeist was no longer present—there was only Jamie. So long as that remained the case, she could relax. Though James would probably not ever realise it, Elaine had staked her career on that assumption.

She had been the only cape present capable of putting together a comprehensive report of the day's events. She had been extended a level of trust by her old mentor and those above him, a trust she had betrayed by protecting these two.

By all rights, James and Jamie should have been arrested and placed under heavy security. For Jamie it was because of what she was capable of—Master/Stranger protocols were given one of the highest priorities in field actions by those who followed them for a reason. A moment's mistrust could make or break an engagement between multiple powered individuals.

For James, she had to take him at his word that what he was saying about crossing universes was true. Volley had been correct that day—some of the best Tinkers and Thinkers in the world had not yet cracked the secrets to dimensional travel, at least as far as she knew. If James' abilities were to become public knowledge, there was no telling what organisations around the world might attempt in order to have access to his powers, or the chance to study him.

If their abilities ever came to light, Elaine would probably find herself under no small amount of suspicion. It was only natural—she had worked side by side with the two for years. She obviously _should_ have ferreted out their secrets after so much time together, and the fact that she had never reported it would be a black mark on her record. Despite the very real threat hanging over her head, Elaine still felt a rather warm glow in her chest as she quietly opened the door and slipped out into the hallway, leaving the two to their little tiff.

_You'll always be a leader to me, Flurry._

A leader had to take care of their subordinates, did they not? As she walked along the hallway, Elaine decided that Karen would most likely have approved of her course of action.

...

* * *

_"Patient two-zero-five-four, you have a visitor,"_ the speaker buzzed just as Jamie was inspecting the nightgown she had found in the footlocker..

"What? Aren't these supposed to be scheduled in advanced or all at once during visiting hours?" Jamie complained. "This is very inconvenient for the prisoner, you know!"

_"Please cease all activity and step away from the entryway to allow entry of your guides."_

"I was just about to take a nap and I can't walk. And your 'guides' should not be armed like Special Forces if you expect anyone to take this place seriously."

The speaker wisely chose not to engage her in a battle of wits, clearly knowing it was outmatched. Instead another doctor or nurse or whatever arrived with another guard—only one this time—and helped her into her wheelchair. She was brought back to the same walled-off visiting center as before, but despite the similarities in the situation Jamie found herself struck dumb as she entered the room.

Seated on the other side of the glass was a woman who was probably middle-aged, but she looked far older. Her hair was grey with streaks of black, rather than the other way around, and stress lines carved their way across her face.

Behind the chair stood a stern-looking man with closely cropped hair. He shared the same worry lines and grey hair as the woman and he had one hand gripping onto her shoulder tightly—support for himself, or for the woman, it was hard to say.

The woman's eyes were brimming with unshed tears as she held the receiver to her ear expectantly. Jamie was wide-eyed as the guard rolled her into place. She didn't even realise she had completely frozen up until the same guard picked up the handset and bumped her arm with it.

She took it from him with shaking hands, slowly bringing it to the side of her face even as her face never left the eyes of the person sitting opposite her.

Jamie gulped, her voice cracking slightly she squeaked out, "...Mama?"

**ooo**

"I hate this."

"I can't help that."

"Stupid window. Stupid guards. Stupid _prison._ Those were my _parents!_ They should have let me go with them!"

"I don't think that's how it works, Jamie. Psych ward, remember? Still... it's nice to know you haven't been forgotten."

"It's almost worse! At least I could have made a clean break! But now—now I know they're out there. Waiting for me. That makes being in here so much harder."

"You've still got me."

"Whoop-dee-doo."

"Seriously, try me. I'm not going to help break you out, but ask anything of me and I'll see if there's anything I can do."

"..."

"Offer's available at any time. Just saying."

"..."

"...what's with that look?"

...

* * *

Kagami Shirakawa had long ago come to terms that her son was not given to random displays of affection. She had no clue as to why the gods had decided to gift her son with powers, but her James seemed to have matured fairly quickly once he had grown into his abilities. Even as a child he had worked and trained harder than many adults that she knew of. His power didn't seem to have an appreciable offensive aspect to them, so she understood that he was trying to find a way to make up for that gap.

He became serious, hard working, always choosing to solve his problems on his own without having to depend on anyone else. He grew distant from his parents, as if the emotional gulf between them could keep them from harm. His power, the little ghost that followed him everywhere, seemed to be the opposite. She seemed to embody all of the adolescent cheer and innocence James had left behind. But even then, James seemed reluctant to allow Jamie to interact with his parents for any lengthy period of time.

When James had finally brought companions over to their restaurant, Kagami had felt a renewed hope that he was finally reestablishing a social life. Even if she had slight suspicions as to the nature of his new friends, given their obvious disparity in age, she jumped at the chance to make them feel welcome. To encourage them in their association with her boy.

Unfortunately the previous year had seen the return of James' isolated lifestyle. The few shreds of information she was able to pry out of him no longer contained tidbits and anecdotes regarding his teammates. There were no longer any breaks between successful missions, instead he was out on patrol every day of every week. What little free time he had was gone.

The last few weeks had been even worse. James had suddenly decided to switch to a nightly patrol, increasing the time he spent away from home even further. He no longer helped Kagami and her husband with their restaurant, so the opportunities she had to spoil her child were reduced even more.

She was almost relieved to receive a phone call from one of James' old friends. The girl had clearly been worried about her son and from the oblique way she phrased her concerns, Kagami had suspicions that she was aware of James' paranormal status. She also vividly recalled her as the sole female in his previous circle of friends.

Kagami had wondered if this Elaine was single. Her son needed all the help she could give him, the way his life was going.

Still, James was not a boy prone to fits of affection. That was why, barely a day after her son came home after a short stay in a hospital—how she _hated_ those parts of life—she was surprised to find James coming down the stairs with a slightly pensive look on his face. "Mama?" he asked.

Kagami blinked. He hadn't called her that in _years_. She paused in her cleaning and allowed the towel to rest on the table's surface. _"James?"_ she asked him in the language of her homeland. With the rest of her extended family deceased after Leviathan's attack so many years ago, she liked to keep as many reminders of her home as possible. Her gaze fell to his arms, noticing a tiny ball of fluff nestled within.

She groaned. She really would have preferred that he bring a girl home, but a pet was at least _something._ Still, she had to keep up appearances, jabbing a finger at the walking allergy hazard. _"How many times must I remind you?"_ she chided him. _"Jiemi-nigou stays upstairs!"_

She had been quietly amused when he had decided to name the kitten such a thing. _Jamie-Version Two._ He obviously had no imagination when it came to naming things. First his ghost was an altered version of his own name, now he'd named a pet after _that_. She despaired for his future children.

James looked uncharacteristically flustered—Kagami would almost have said _shy_ if she had thought her child capable of such a thing. "Sorry, Mama," he replied. "Just really quick, and I'll even help you clean up afterwards, if you want me to."

James offering to make time for her? This was new. _"Are you... alright?"_ she asked. Had her baby been injured more seriously than she had thought? That couldn't have been it, he was in pretty bad shape after last year and she couldn't imagine anything worse than that. _"James?"_

James set the kitten down against the floor where it mewled unhappily at the loss of warmth and tried to climb his trouser leg. "I'm fine Mama," he said. "I just... can I get a hug?"

Kagami blinked and turned her head to glance out the window. Nope, the sky was not falling. She looked back at her son and her heart melted as she saw him fidgeting nervously. _"Of course, baby!" _Two long steps and she was standing before him, staring up into his face. _Was he always this tall?_

James lifted his arms timidly, but lowered them when Kagami raised her own arms in preparation. She caught the hint of reluctance and sadly lowered her arms, waiting for him to make the first move. There was the slightest of pressure as James wrapped his arms around her shoulders, as if trying out something completely new, or at least long out of practice.

The pressure gradually increased as James settled in, then suddenly Kagami was nearly bowled over as her son collapsed against her and hugged her fiercely.

_"James!"_ Kagami exclaimed. _"... James?"_ Was this her son? Had he been hit by some sort of emotion power in the last conflict?

"I'm sorry Mama... I've missed you so much!" James said quietly. "I'm so sorry for being a bad child."

This was... strange. But Kagami wasn't one to let an opportunity pass by. She brought one arm around to pat her son across his back and reached up with the other to cradle his head against her shoulder. _"That's alright, dear. I love you anyways."_

James hiccupped once, as if choking back tears, then abruptly stiffened in her arms. He pulled himself out of her grasp and she reluctantly let him go, watching as he ran a sleeve over his eyes. _Oh dear,_ she thought to herself. _Maybe I went a step too far?_

She decided to take pity on her boy and changed the subject. _"Now then, you mentioned you would help me clean up after your kitten, yes?"_

James rubbed at his arms awkwardly. At least the hug seemed to have done him some good, he seemed to have returned to acting how he usually did.

She was just a bit _slightly_ confused when he turned towards the kitten as if it had suddenly grown horns and a devil's tail, muttering something that sounded _awfully_ close to, 'you witch'.

Jamie-v2 mewled happily right back at him.

**ooo**

"That was a low blow."

Mew. _It's payback._

"For _what?!_"

_You lied to me again._

"About?"

_That crystal-shard-type-thing in your little bridge. You said you could break it. You _blackmailed_ me into listening to you!_

"Err..."

Myaa~ _Yeah, you had no clue what it was, did you? I took a look last night, nada. You _bluffed_ me. I can't believe you!_

"Claws... claws! Stop with the claws! _Ow, _fine! I'm sorry, okay? But seriously, are you complaining about my results?"

_...I guess not. But... it's not quite what I'd imagined it would be like._

"We'll get through this. Just be patient. I made a promise a long time ago that I'd get you your life back."

_I think I'm going to hold you to that promise._

"I'll follow through. Trust me. But... yeah, for your version of Mum and Pop to just leave you there... I mean it's nice that they came to visit but even I thought—"

_Sigh... Silly Big Brother. It's not your fault._

**ooo**

* * *

_**(a/n)—**__aaand that's it. done. it's resolved. happy endings for all!... except for the still-having to keep stuff secret... and being in a prison/psych hospital. shrug? hum, i had a lot to this chapter is 8k words including the author's notes. i had a lot i had to 'clean up' with... oh well.  
_

_thanks to my reviewers, i know i'm probably not what a lot of you are used to (i never pm'd replies, but i generally don't do that in the first place, so don't feel like i was singling anyone one._

_anyhow, as a reward, shout out to all the people who _did _review, a big thanks to all of you for keeping up with the story and letting me know people still read it, as well as some nice comments on what you all thought._

_first all the people who reviewed multiple times/chapters (as of this posting, in no particular order):_

esran  
packbat  
someone010101  
langer101  
tapiocatalks  
fazed343  
inconspicuous llama  
john galt  
keyonte0  
veloren

_and all the rest of you one-shot people:_

clarvel, en, edao, evan, ironsoul, luke wren, madd0ct0r, razorsmile, ristridin, shawnmorgan, solidstach ,unmaker, zarohk korobase, zebigdeadkitty

_again, thanks to all of you. and a special mention to_ panderp_ and soulpelt from the irc channel._

_actually, not soulpelt. he's mean and wont let the stupid 30-year divergence rule alone. hissss._

_will there be a sequel to shattered glass? i don't know. i haven't planned one, but then i never planned a sequel to looking glass, hence why it's just a oneshot. then people started bugging me, Worm kept moving forward, and the characters started building themselves up in my head. i had a story to tell. so i did it. if nothing else, this has been my longest stand-alone story to date. i'm feeling very accomplished at the moments._

**_do _YOU**_** guys want a sequel?** let me know. was there anything i failed to explain fully, something you'd like to see more of? a particular character you want more backstory on? let me know in your reviews. i can't promise that i'll address them all but at least it'd give me something to brainstorm about._

_cheers. and thanks again to everyone who read._


	24. Dramatis Personæ

_**(a/n)**__—**STOP!**_

_if you're looking for the conclusion for Shattered Glass, that's one chapter back._

_this is a sort of appendix for the cast of powered characters. if any Worm-aficionados wish to use these characters in your stories, feel free but at least refer them back to either Looking Glass or Shattered Glass stories in your author's notes or something similar._

_thanks!_

_..._

* * *

.

**WARNING:** if you haven't yet finished Shattered Glass, there may be unmarked spoilers belowww.

.

* * *

_**Dramatis Personæ**_

**.**

**LOOKING GLASS**

**Name:** James Shirakawa  
**Gender:** Male  
**D.O.B:** 1991-10-13  
**Alignment:** Hero/Rogue  
**Classification:** Master 5, Thinker 1

**Description:** A Japanese-English cape born Southeast England, but later moved to South Wales. His 'ability' is to anchor a spectral form of Jamie, his alternate-reality distaff counterpart to his own plane. Jamie can move freely up to 5-km from Looking Glass' position, instantly transmitting anything she sees or hears down a psychic link the two share between them.

As a spectre, Jamie is capable of a form of possession. She can take over simple-minded creatures, with her success rate determined by how knowledgeable or familiar she is with the creature or person in question. She has a much more difficult time imposing herself over beings with more advanced or unfamiliar brains, but although she cannot take control, the psychic shock is usually enough to send the target catatonic for a short period of time, or least flinch.

Jamie can also possess Looking Glass directly, either taking full control or simply enhancing his perceptions and reflexes. In this manner she can literally watch his backside and force his body to respond to situations before he may even be fully aware of the threat.

In their civilian identities, Jamie possesses a cat also named Jamie (version 2) to hide herself.

...

* * *

**POLTERGEIST**

**Name:** Jamie Shirakawa  
**Gender:** Female  
**D.O.B:** 1991-10-13  
**Alignment:** Villain/Rogue  
**Classification:** Master 3, Blaster 1, Thinker 1

**Description:** Looking Glass's alternate-reality counterpart. Her time as his spectre has allowed her original body to atrophy, in particular her brain has rewired portions of her brain and nervous system to handle portions of her power. As a result she is effectively paralysed from the waist-down while in her own universe and her physical body. Her power is to anchor a spectral form of James into her own plane, with identical base-abilities.

As a spectre, James can possess physical, inanimate objects. Lightweight or simple objects can simply be lifted and telekinetically propelled towards her enemies (objects up to the size of small furnitures). More complicated objects or heavy machinery can be directly manipulated as if the machine has 'come alive' (hence the name).

In their civilian identities, James possesses Jamie's wheelchair, often propelling her wherever she wishes to go.

...

* * *

**FLURRY**

**Name:** Elaine Thompson  
**Gender:** Female  
**D.O.B:** 1985-05-20  
**Alignment:** Hero  
**Classification:** Blaster 4, Shaker 4

**Description:** A native Welsh cape with the ability create a zone of finite area around herself. Within this zone she can control water-based solids (snow or ice) or spontaneously create them. The zone can be reshaped according to her will, from a circle 50-m in diameter to a narrow cone roughly 400-m long and 10-m across at the far end. Snow or ice can be propelled at speeds up to 200-m/s and can fly beyond the boundaries of the created zone.

Flurry has remarkable control over her element. It can be compacted to form improvised walls or restraints, or even broken up into a localised storm that—if left unchecked—can blind her opponents and eventually bury them beneath the weight of the accumulated snow.

...

* * *

**WU LUNG**

**Name:** XianDai "Evan" Shen  
**Gender:** Male  
**D.O.B:** 1984-11-08  
**Alignment:** Hero  
**Classification:** Striker 6, Blaster 4, Master 4

**Description:** A cape native to Hong Kong. His ability is to manipulate the mass of any inanimate object he touches. He can rearrange and reshape the material directly or convert one form of matter into another with varying degrees of efficiency. He can also convert the mass into a form of raw energy (fire).

Wu's favourite tactic is to start with a relatively large object or combine many smaller ones together. He will use the combined mass to create the 'dancing dragons' that are his namesake. The constructs are only effective whilst he remains in direct contact with them. He generally uses the dragons as immobile bludgeoning turrets or he can sacrifice their durability for ranged attacks.

...

* * *

**VOLLEY**

**Name:** Peter Gwyrrd  
**Gender:** Male  
**D.O.B:** 1987-07-18  
**Alignment:** Hero  
**Classification:** Tinker 3 (Powercell focus), Thinker 1

**Description:** Volley is a cape from Northern Wales that specialises in adapting ultra-efficient power units and capacitors and using them to create portable version of existing designs that normally require heavy power generators. He also has a minor Thinker ability that allows him to intuitively calculate ballistics, although he generally double-checks his work with an onboard computer built into his armour.

Though not an original design, his favourite design is a variable-output railgun that can launch a variety of payloads. At full power, it can act as a direct-fire weapon up to 2-km away, or a long-range artillery unit firing ballistic trajectories up to 50-km. More commonly, he uses them at a much lower setting to launch strikes within a 500-m to 3-km range.

...

* * *

**NIGHTWALKER**

**Name:** Brandon Lloyd  
**Gender:** Male  
**D.O.B:** 1985-04-14  
**Alignment:** Villain  
**Classification:** Mover 6, Stranger 1

**Description:** Nightwalker is a cape native to Greater London. He has the ability to teleport himself between shadows across fairly large distances. Larger shadows allow him to travel farther away and he has a small degree of awareness of the shaded areas he lands in—enough that he doesn't accidentally teleport himself into a wall or other object. He is capable of bringing objects and other people with him on his teleports, provided that the shadows at either end are large enough to handle the transport.

Originally a small-scale thief of money trading centers and pawn shops, Nightwalker's resources and influence have increased over the years with each successful heist he has managed to pull off. He now operates with a small gang of professional, unpowered thieves and is not above contracting other capes for extra muscle.

...

* * *

**DUPLEX**

**Name:** Thomas Dalton  
**Gender:** Male  
**D.O.B:** 1997-02-06  
**Alignment:** Villain/Rogue  
**Classification:** Master 5, Brute 1

**Description:** A relatively new Welsh cape. His ability is to generate a single duplicate of himself charged with a simple desire or compulsion. He can produce a clone once every few minutes. Each clone is completely autonomous and will do everything it can to achieve that desire or satisfy the compulsion, heedless of all other concerns. If a clone is fatally damaged, it will regenerate back to its original condition, whilst splitting off a new duplicate of itself. Each clone is just slightly less durable than the source, making it easier and easier to trigger a new wave of duplications.

The clones start off with a regeneration limit that drops with each successive generation, although the exact number is not yet known. When completely destroyed, clones fully disintegrate, and leave behind no traces.

...

* * *

**AJAX**

**Name:** George Kellis  
**Gender:** Male  
**D.O.B:** 1979-06-11  
**Alignment:** Hero  
**Classification:** Shaker 5

**Description:** A Greek national, Ajax is a strongly-principled cape that considers himself a bastion for those too weak to defend themselves—whether that be unpowered individuals or other parahumans new to cape scene. He is well-known for taking younger capes under his wing, no questions asked, until he deems them ready to go out into the world at large.

His power allows him to create relatively straight-forward but powerful forcefields. He can continuously reinforce a single, primary shield or set up a multi-layered defense to cover different angles. He is equipped with a tinker-designed armour as well as portable field generators that mimic his power to a lesser degree, supplied and maintained by a former protégé.

**ooo**


End file.
